Shedeur Sanders will officially be a Day 3 NFL Draft pick — if that.
Sanders went unselected during the second and third rounds on Friday, and he’s now among the biggest draft slides in NFL history.
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After a winding evaluation process that cast him as one of the NFL draft’s biggest mysteries, multiple QB-needy franchises repeatedly passed on Sanders. It comes in the wake of a last-minute spate of controversy earlier this week, after NFL Network quoted multiple anonymous league sources who hammered Sanders with sharp criticism over his level of play and pre-draft interviews.
While the critiques were not the first for Sanders in this process, the nature of some of the comments — including calling him “entitled” and “not very good” as a player — drew a spate of negative reactions both inside and outside of league circles.
Among the teams that repeatedly passed on him, perhaps surprisingly, were the Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, New Orleans Saints and Pittsburgh Steelers. Interestingly, both the Browns and Giants did a significant amount of work on Sanders in the pre-draft process.
Once thought to be a Sanders suitor at No. 2 overall, the Browns traded out of that pick and moved back to No. 5 in a swap of assets with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Browns then stuck at that pick and chose Michigan defensive tackle Mason Graham. Conversely, the Giants — who were also once counted as a possible Sanders destination — stuck at their No. 3 overall pick and took Penn State edge rusher Abdul Carter. New York then later traded back into the tail end of the first round in their quest for a quarterback, but settled on Mississippi’s Jaxson Dart at the 25th overall pick.
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After the conclusion of the first round, Sanders spoke to those in attendance at his draft watch site in Texas. In a video posted to Instagram by his father, Deion, he framed the moment “fuel to the fire.”
“We all didn’t expect this of course, but I feel like with God, anything’s possible, everything’s possible, and I feel like this didn’t happen for no reason,” Sanders said. “All this is of course is fuel to the fire. Under no circumstance — we all know this shouldn’t have happened, but we understand we’re on to bigger and better things. If tomorrow’s the day, we’re going to be happy regardless.”
Sanders will be the sixth quarterback off the board, at best, following Miami’s Cam Ward, Dart, Louisville’s Tyler Shough, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe and Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel.
This news was originally published on this post .
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