Everyone was wrong about Shedeur Sanders. Everyone.
Awful Announcing’s Matt Yoder asked the question we’ve all been wondering: “How did everyone get it so wrong on Shedeur Sanders?”
And we’re still trying to figure that out.
We’ve since learned that a handful of NFL owners instructed their front offices to steer clear of the “entitled” Shedeur Sanders. Others have pointed directly to how he handled the NFL Draft process, including not hiring any representation. The red flags were there, but they were either overlooked or ignored.
And when it comes to being wrong, no one was wronger than Mel Kiper Jr.
“Listen, we act like this — and I’m not trying to throw a shot at Mel Kiper because I generally find him to be a good person,” Jemele Hill said during a spot on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. “I’ve dealt with him over the years; he’s been nothing but kind to me. But this isn’t the first time Mel’s been badly wrong, right?”
According to Hill, the Sanders hype train — driven by Deion and powered by Colorado’s spotlight — attracted a flood of casual fans who never really followed college football or the NFL Draft. Kiper’s evaluation gave those fans fuel, and when things didn’t go as expected, the backlash hit hard.
Hill argues that part of the issue was the media itself.
“I would even gather to say, if anything, at least among the media, how fans have responded,” Hill said. “And they tend to get blurred together, because there was definitely a huge portion of particular fanbases that did the opposite in terms of treating Shedeur Sanders a particular way. We know what that is. We know what that element is. They definitely faced that.
“In the media, if anything, because of the reverence for Deion, I think a lot of people were kind of covering for it. Not him himself, but when it came time to really evaluate Shedeur’s talent, I think that they probably gave him some passes and maybe didn’t report as accurately or honestly as they should have because of who his father was.”
Dan Le Batard isn’t buying that.
The former Miami Herald columnist called the idea “crazy” that media members might’ve pulled punches or softened their evaluations simply because Deion Sanders’ persona swayed them.
“I don’t know if it’s his charm because I do think what happens in the media, especially, it can be done sort of innocently enough when you see a fanbase reacting,” Hill replies. “Shedeur Sanders, Deion Sanders, let’s be real, they made a whole lot of white folks mad — they made them mad. By the way they presented themselves, and there was nothing wrong with how they did, but there was a contingent that was on the hate train because they thought it was overhyped, and all the other narratives that we have talked about when it comes to this family. And I think there were media members who were very conscious of that and understood that that was at play. And perhaps it made them pull their punches in ways.
“Because we saw too much extreme. Just like there was media in Colorado when Deion had that back-and-forth with that reporter, based off something he reported on, we saw how Deion being charismatic and being somebody that very understands the media, having been a part of it, we see how he is able to use the media in his favor. I mean, he is. And I think a lot of media members, rather than give another draft pick whose last name might not be Sanders, I think a lot of these stories that we heard about his approach and criticism about his approach to the combine, to other things, I think those things probably would’ve been reported and talked about a lot sooner if it were somebody else not attached to the last name ‘Sanders.'”
Deion understood the media better than the media understood him. And Shedeur paid the price for that misunderstanding, or, depending on your perspective, the benefit of that bias, when the NFL finally made its judgment.
In the end, everyone — fans, scouts, analysts, and yes, Mel Kiper Jr. — got it wrong.