No one could quite put their finger on why Shedeur Sanders slid.
NFL Network struggled to explain how Sanders was still available at the end of Day 2. They weren’t as openly “disgusted” with the process as Mel Kiper Jr., but too many variables weren’t adding up. And that led the likes of Stephen A. Smith to suggest that some Colin Kaepernick-level collusion might be at play.
Bomani Jones, however, pushed back against those comparisons. He argued that media members searching for a larger “cause” were missing the point entirely. There are tangible distractions that Shedeur brought to the table — he’s brash, a celebrity, and carries a level of attention that many teams might view as an unwanted sideshow.
And, according to Boomer Esiason, NFL owners put the kibosh on the sideshows before the train could leave the station.
“Shedeur Sanders just torpedoed himself,” Esiason claimed on Monday’s Boomer & Gio. “His attitude off the field, at the combine. His dad didn’t help him, either. He was on podcasts talking about, ‘This is my son. If I can get him to where I want to get him to, I’m going to do that.’ But when you listen to this kid talk, right prior, or at the combine, about ‘If you want a new culture in your locker room, I’m the guy to do that. I can turn it around.’ I mean, he’s very high on himself.
“And I think he was very, very off-putting to many, many coaches and general managers in the league. And I’m telling you right now, and I know this after talking to three different personnel people in the NFL this weekend, they didn’t even have him on their board. They took him off. And they took him off, because the owner said, ‘Take him off. I don’t want that guy. I don’t want this entitled person on our team.”
And Esiason doesn’t blame them.
As the facts come out, it looks more and more like there wasn’t this grand conspiracy that pushed Shedeur Sanders down the board. It was a league full of owners and decision-makers who decided they didn’t want the noise — or the gamble. In their eyes, Sanders wasn’t a victim of collusion. He was a victim of perception, and he only had himself — and to a degree, his father — to blame.