Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders is reported to have "sandbagged" interviews with teams he was less interested in prior to the 2025 NFL Draft.
Sanders, 23, the son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, his coach at both Jackson State and the University of Colorado, was projected by many to be a potential first-round pick, but slid to the fifth-round, with prior reports claiming he had poor interviews with NFL teams. CBS Sports' Jonathan Jones claims some of those interviews may have been intentional.
“At some of those [combine] meetings with certain teams that maybe Shedeur Sanders didn’t really want to go to … I was told that he more or less sandbagged in those interviews,” Jones said.
“I don’t know if he didn’t take them seriously, what it was, but he did not give it his all in some of those interviews,” he added. “Rubbed some teams the wrong way.”
Sanders' father had previously implied that he had specific teams in mind for Shedeur and his other son, Shilo, who also played for the Buffaloes and eventually signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent. The Pro Football Hall of Famer teased that he and Shedeur would take similar action to former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning and his father, former NFL quarterback Archie Manning, when they expressed their desire for Eli to not play for the then-San Diego Chargers prior to the 2004 NFL Draft.
“I know where I want them to go,” Deion said. “There’s certain cities where it ain’t going to happen … It’s going to be an Eli. We ain’t doing that.”
Manning was, in fact, selected by the Chargers at No. 1 overall in the 2004 NFL Draft, but traded to the Giants for Philip Rivers, who was selected at No. 4 overall, as well as other picks. Shedeur, however, was passed by all 32 teams for four rounds before being taken by the Browns at No. 144 overall in the fifth-round of the 2025 NFL Draft on Saturday (April 26), two rounds after Cleveland had already selected former Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel.