Shedder Sanders has been incredibly vocal in the lead-up to the 2025 NFL Draft about how media members haven’t portrayed him accurately.
On Tuesday, one media personality who saw his talents in person numerous times while playing for the Colorado Buffaloes backed him up.
Fox Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt joined Gus Johnson in the booth for several Colorado football games this past season. From his perspective, the quarterback is undoubtedly talented enough to hear his name called early in the 2025 NFL Draft later this month.
Klatt joined Colin Cowherd on Tuesday’s edition of The Herd, outlining how he believes that Sanders should and likely will be selected with a top-five or top-six pick later this month.
“I think Shedeur is an incredible player,” said Klatt. “I think he is, and should be, a top-five or six pick in the draft. I think what people fail to realize is that he was doing at the college level what he is going to be asked to do at the NFL level.
“How many times do we evaluate quarterbacks that are playing with far superior teammates than their opposition? All the time, that’s all we do. It’s part of the reason why it is so difficult to evaluate college quarterbacks is because, generally speaking, they are playing on really good teams. And their teammates are far better than the opposition.
“That’s not necessarily the case with Shedeur. He was playing behind a really bad offensive line. And he took a team that went from one win and then ultimately wound up in the top 25 and won nine games. Why? Because of him. He had to raise the level of everyone around him. He did it without a run game and he did it without an offensive line. He is hyper accurate in the pocket. He can create kind of from a magical standpoint and keep the play alive similar to Fran Tarkenton.”
Klatt then aimed at media members forming narratives around Sanders that he believes are unfair and part of a yearly cycle from “lazy journalists” in the lead-up to the NFL Draft.
“The draft media, or certain individuals within the league, who are never going to draft this player to begin with, start perpetuating these myths and these untruths about these players stemming out of the Combine. ‘We didn’t like this guy. This guy is falling.’ To be honest with you, I think that this type of storyline is lazy. It’s rinse and repeat every year. You take the guy that is the most controversial in the draft and then we have to end up talking about this exact subject due to lazy journalism and a big mouth scout. That’s what happens every single year. But when you actually watch Shedeur, the guy is excellent, man.”
To Klatt’s point, negativity around Sanders’ draft stock started when NFL insider Josina Anderson reported on an anonymous NFL quarterback coach on a team drafting inside the top-seven in the 2025 NFL Draft, who said that Sanders is “arrogant” and “brash” to be around.
While Anderson condemned the anonymous coach and detailed how she got an entirely different perspective when she met Sanders, her report led to even more negativity surrounding him as a prospect.
In particular, Todd McShay reported how multiple teams inside the top 10 in the upcoming draft felt as if Sanders “did not care too much what they or the organization felt of him,” raising further concerns about his character.
We will soon see whether these kinds of reports ultimately result in Sanders’ draft stock slipping significantly. But at least in Joel Klatt’s eyes, any team that decides to ignore the noise around Sanders will be happy that they did.