Did Shedeur Sanders and the NFL Draft finally break ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr.? Roundtable

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The 2025 NFL Draft’s media coverage and national conversation was defined by who was NOT taken — Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders. Sanders was ranked as the No. 1 quarterback prospect in the draft by ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. (and a first- or second-round lock by every reputable draft analyst), only to plummet out of Thursday’s first round, then again out of Friday’s Rounds 2 and 3 before finally settling Saturday in the fifth round as the 144th overall pick to the Cleveland Browns.

The Athletic‘s sports media reporters Richard Deitsch and Andrew Marchand got together with sports business editor Dan Shanoff to talk about the Shedeur Sanders discourse (aka “Shediscourse”), the Kiper phenomenon, the larger draft TV experience and what’s next.

Dan Shanoff: Let me just get right to it — from the start of the draft Thursday night until Saturday afternoon when Sanders was finally picked, I was fascinated by Mel Kiper Jr. going off the rails, caught between his status as the most prolific and prominent draft analyst of all time and the reality that his assessment of Sanders was comprehensively rejected by the entire league, over and over and over.

What is fascinating is that unlike Stephen A. Smith or Pat McAfee (or even Dick Vitale or Lee Corso), who always seem in on the bit, Kiper has built his career in part on having little-to-no capacity to be in on the bit, especially during the draft when we are all “on the clock.”

No, this was Kiper having sincerely felt outbursts — plural — on live TV, and it started in the final minutes leading up to the No. 1 overall pick, when a discussion of near-guaranteed top pick Cam Ward turned into Kiper stanning for Shedeur, even though no one in the extended NFL Draft universe had him slotted there. The caping continued, through the Saints’ first pick, the Steelers’ first pick, then when the other QBs were taken in the second and third rounds.

Kiper finally seemed to break when the Browns selected Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel near the end of the third round on Friday night: “Disgusting!”

By Saturday afternoon, perhaps Kiper realized an “I’m not crazy, YOU’RE all crazy!” campaign was Sisyphian, and he moved on to his wheelhouse: Smart insights on obscure Day 3 draft picks. (And yet the reminder of the situation was still right there on the screen, every time ESPN posted “Mel’s Best Available” and the graphic showed Shedeur at No. 1, as it had every moment since early Thursday night.)

When Sanders was finally drafted, Kiper jumped in with an enthusiasm and rapid-fire cadence like he was given a shot of adrenaline — it was a monologue he had been waiting to make for an endless 42 hours and 18 minutes. It felt less like a victory lap than a catharsis.

The entire subsequent 20-minute discussion about Shedeur by the ESPN crew was fascinating — especially when Rece Davis and Louis Reddick thoughtfully started talking about what Sanders needed to take from this experience, and Mel let 48 hours of personal and professional frustration explode, culminating in this banger:

“The NFL has been CLUELESS evaluating quarterbacks!”

Both Davis and Riddick had finally had enough, and they effectively scolded Kiper to finally just pipe down about Sanders.

Take the 3 minutes and watch the full clip:

Reece: Mel, yelling at the NFL isn’t the answer

Mel, yelling even louder: THE NFL IS CLUELESS!! CLUELESS FOR 50 YEARS!!

Mel looking to fight the whole panel 😂 pic.twitter.com/7meF5frZsW

— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) April 26, 2025

Whew! I appear to have caught a bit of Shedeur Derangement Syndrome myself! It’s all a lot to unpack.

So the question I’m wrestling with is: Was the Shedeur Sanders story compelling TV or, in the end, a little lamentable for everyone involved? And what did you think of the media feeding frenzy?

Richard Deitsch: There’s a lot to unpack here because this year’s NFL Draft was as much a media story as it was a football story. In Kiper’s case, it was the nexus of being invested in his analysis running into the reality of what was actually happening. The reality was that NFL Draft evaluators saw Sanders in a very different way than ESPN’s lead analyst did.

Kiper was not alone. I did not see any major NFL Draft evaluators that had Sanders lasting past the third round. Even The Athletic’s Dane Brugler, for instance, ranked him at No. 34 overall. But Kiper’s intensity and personalizing Sanders not being selected is what stood out — and floated throughout ESPN’s coverage. Kiper will be the defining sports media person when it comes to how people processed the draft for Sanders.

It gets to this point: When I watch the NFL Draft, I always remind myself that this is a television show above all, and one that starts months before the actual draft. The scouting combine, NFL Draft shoulder programming — it generates hundreds of thousands of content hours and ad revenue. (Same with digital outlets such as The Athletic.) There is always a performative element to it as well. ESPN and the NFL Network do not want wallflowers. They want opinionists.

The arc of what happened this weekend was in many ways similar to Colorado football. There was a feeding frenzy on all things Colorado when Deion Sanders arrived and won early. That spread to even “60 Minutes” and outlets that don’t cover sports. When Colorado started losing, the coverage shifted. Maybe Deion Sanders was not a revolutionary figure in coaching but just another coach in a very tough conference.

I watched a lot of NFL Network over the weekend, and the tone was different than what ESPN was emitting. That coverage was more sober, and I’ll pass along what lead analyst Daniel Jeremiah said on Thursday night because he provided some much-needed reality when talking about why the Steelers passed on Sanders early:

“If you went back and read my Kenny Pickett report, his strengths and weaknesses lined up with Shedeur’s strengths and weaknesses as a player,” Jeremiah said. “They took one ride on that roller-coaster in this portion of the draft. I don’t know that they will do that again.”

I think if you watched coverage away from Kiper, your NFL Draft experience was different. But again: Never forget this is a television show above all. I would bet significant money that ESPN’s NFL Draft producers loved Kiper’s intensity and “atta boy”-ed him after they went off the air.

Andrew Marchand: The draft is a TV show, and Kiper was the star. With ESPN, ABC, NFL Network, McAfee and a million outlets covering the draft, the two biggest topics at its conclusion were — Sanders dropping and Kiper going nuts about it.

For ESPN, it is “Mission Accomplished.”

Sanders was the star of the draft. It is because he is the son of one of the greatest and most flamboyant athletes of all time, who happened to coach him in college. He supposedly had a shot of being the No. 1 pick and ended up being the 144th. It’s an all-time story.

Kiper relentlessly implied Sanders will be the next Tom Brady, the 32 NFL team front offices resoundingly said, “No way.”

While it is fair to wonder why Kiper and much of the media — to different extents — got it wrong, that’s not the point of the show.

Kiper is not a legendary part of the draft because he is always right. He kept making this ludicrous argument about quarterbacks who were passed up in the first round and went on to become great, leading with Brady. But this is how Kiper has succeeded, dating back to 1990 when ESPN’s NFL Draft producer at the time, Fred Gaudelli, came up with the Big Board — and Kiper, at first, wanted to keep the No. 1 overall pick, Jeff George, off it. He relented and put George at No. 40. That’s how you bring the drama to the show.

This weekend, ESPN was right to focus on Sanders. I actually thought on Day 2 and 3 there were times when they seemed a bit gun shy. I was glued to my screen and I bet the ratings show, I wasn’t alone — because of this storyline.

Kiper takes his analysis seriously, and he should. Just like his view on George, he believes it on Sanders. It is important to try to get it all right. Time will tell if he did or not on Sanders, though there are always more circumstances than just the player for a quarterback’s success.

For people on TV, it is an attention business. Kiper was the star of the weekend. Maybe he will even end up being correct on Sanders.

But, honestly, for his role, he already got an “A,” because he was the biggest character on the show.

Postscript from Dan Shanoff: Around 6:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, the ESPN draft broadcast ended with a fun montage of Kiper’s greatest moments, along with a lot of smiles, laughter, pie with fat-free whipped topping and orange drink across the panel, toasting to Kiper’s career and legacy. Almost all the picks were in, and the mood was light. Kiper’s 42nd draft was in the books, and he ensured it will be one fans won’t forget.

(Photo: Tork Mason / Green Bay Press-Gazette via Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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