Shedeur Sanders is a good NFL quarterback. His eight NFL starts is a small sample, but considering he still has never been awarded the opportunity to consistently take reps with the first team, his flashes of brilliance suggest a bright future for the former Johnny Unitas Award Winner.
Not sure how many winners of that particular award dropped to the fifth round of the draft, but Shedeur Sanders did. And even though he’s a fifth-round pick being judged like a No.1 overall pick, you have to love the potential and poise on display.
Unless you’re just still hating.
Shedeur started for injured Deshaun Watson on Sunday and produced a nice performance with 297 yards passing and two TDs, as well as some riveting performance in the clutch. The Browns lost to the New Orleans Saints, 23-22, but Cleveland Browns head coach Todd Monken raved about his second-year quarterback and noted that he was able to produce this performance without a schedule of first-team reps for the first 10 weeks of the season.
“I was thrilled. I was really pleased for him. Does it give me confidence? You BET IT DOES. There is something to build on, FOR SURE,” Monken said.
Prior to that game, Saints coach Kellen Moore, an offensive guru who also played quarterback in the NFL, spoke about the possibility of facing Sanders, a quarterback that they passed over several times to draft current starter Tyler Shough. He’s as respected a quarterback evaluator as there is in the league and he didn’t speak about Shedeur as if he was just some fifth-round pick that should be grateful to be here.
“Shedeur was a real solid draft prospect a couple of years ago,” Moore told reporters. “We made the decision to go with Tyler, but he had a lot of success at Colorado and a very impressive résumé with his ability to throw the football and make plays. He’s a talented player as well. You’re looking at a class that has a number of players that’s going to start in this league for a long time at QB.”
Moore told no lies. Some fans downplayed his compliments of Sanders as a coach simply not wanting to give the opposition any extra inspiration entering Sunday’s game.
“He also gave the answer every HC in the league would give … .you never downgrade your opponent and give them bulletin board material,” said one fan, who dismissed Moore’s analysis of Shedeur as simple coach talk.
“All coaches say the same thing about their upcoming opponent,” another netizen suggested.
Some fans had their own interpretations of what Moore was saying in the video clip.
“You can tell he regrets getting Tyler lol,” one fan suggested. To which another fan clapped back, “He knows Shedeur will be out of this league soon!”
Shedeur was discussed as a first-round pick in the media throughout his draft evaluation process and all of a sudden, things changed. Shough rose out of relative obscurity at Louisville to get drafted in the second round (40th overall) by the New Orleans Saints.
Moore sounded like he would be just as happy with Shedeur leading his team, but business decisions were made by the entire league concerning Deion’s son.
As Shedeur continues to impress every informed football eye that evaluates him as a quarterback, some local media and blatant haters continue to praise Watson and push a false narrative that the Sanders boy can’t start in the NFL. Every time he steps on the field and you listen to a coach discuss him, all you can do is get more excited for his future once he breaks the chains of mediocrity and self-inflicted pain in Cleveland.
