Entitled, arrogant, self-centered, pompous, punk, brash, cocky, off-putting, classless, an acquired taste. In his own words, ‘‘favored.’’ Then there’s the nepotism, full of inherited hubris, the sins of his father held against him, the dismissiveness of the whole predraft process, his middle-fingering of it all. The disrespect.
Shedeur Sanders, the ‘‘legendary’’ one, son of sports’ leading man of Black confidence and arrogance Deion Sanders, became undraftable to NFL owners to the point that his draft ‘‘settlement’’ was sacrificial. According to Kevin Patra, senior news writer for NFL.com: ‘‘The negative on-field traits bundled with perceived off-field flaws led to his draft tumble.’’
Perceived? Tumble? OK. The schadenfreude of it all. The race-related mirthfulness. Sanders’ free fall from projected Day 1/No. 3 overall pick to actual Day 3/No. 144 pick in the NFL Draft became sports’ latest toxic narrative. Unprecedented. Leave it to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mitchell S. Jackson, in his headline for Esquire, to balance the toxicity: ‘‘Shedeur Sanders Didn’t Fall Down the NFL Draft Board, He Was Pushed.’’
And I use the term ‘‘race-related’’ with regard to the relationship African Americans historically have with the NFL and the quarterback position to not say that being Black was the reason Sanders torpedoed and the NFL used him to make a point, saying instead that if he were a different ‘‘type’’ of brotha or if he played a different position we might not be having this conversation at all. (Of note: Former No. 1 high school prospect Quinn Ewers, who held off next year’s potential No. 1 overall pick, quarterback Arch Manning, for the starting job at Texas last season was a Day 2/early Day 3 draft prospect but had to wait until Day 3, Round 7, Pick 231. Only 26 picks from the last pick of the draft and 87 picks behind Sanders.)
It’s the ‘‘type’’ part of Black that we know to be at the irrefutable center of this. You can’t be all of the mentions mentioned in the opening sentence and not expect any of them to be an oversized part of the why. Still, Johnny Manziel was a Day 1 draft pick.
Like with the villain in ‘‘Sinners,’’ the NFL is a symbol with centuries of meaning.
There’s a difference between sending a message to someone and making an example of them, a difference in lesson learned and humiliation. The NFL chose the latter on both. Not just to let Shedeur Sanders know, but to remind any and all other players already in or wanting to come into the league, anyone who looks like Sanders and plays or wishes to play that most sacred position in football, that playing is not the privilege — ownership is.
Of trading up and drafting Travis Hunter, Jaguars general manager Jimmy Gladstone said, ‘‘The decision to select him was a statement.’’ The decision by all 32 teams not to select Shedeur was a statement, too. The suspicious mistrust: Did Shedeur Sanders’ vanity and egoism deserve a statement that strong, that loud, that humiliating?
There’s right and wrong in every answer you come up with.
The NFL might be right about Sanders. It even might be right to allow Sanders’ draft experience to play out the way it did without actually saying something in defense (besides the cowardly, anonymous, single-sourced reports that were leaked before the draft) of why this so openly happened to one of its potential ‘‘employees.’’
By the same construct, we have the right — especially with the NFL’s track record with Black players and the QB position, from Joe Gilliam being replaced by Terry Bradshaw; to Charlie Ward winning the Heisman Trophy and being unchosen in the draft (even though the same thing has happened to 14 other Heisman winners, Ward remains the only Black QB to be so treated); to the public display of blackball and collusion placed on Colin Kaepernick — to feel a certain way about how Sanders’ situation transpired, whether the NFL’s version or ours is right or wrong.
It’s the league against our history with the league. Rights and wrongs all over the place. And if I wanted to add the historic relationship the NFL still has with Black coaches and the pseudo-effectiveness of the Rooney Rule, I’d be wrong for that. Right?
The NFL (to me) has not earned the grace of benefit of doubt on this being strictly about football, about attitude and protocol, about evaluation and projection, about talent or a team wasting a first-round pick on him. It’s way deeper, way more complicated, far more internally motivated than that. The league knows it, it just doesn’t want us to know.
Then again, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Shedeur’s ‘‘slide’’ had nothing to do with race, so I guess it didn’t. Nothing in the NFL ever does.
Everyone can be wrong. Sometimes wrong can be right when it’s for the greater good. Or for a message to be further enforced. Sometimes you never know or find out if you’re wrong because the truth stays hidden, even by those who know you might be right. Sometimes right has two sides. Sometimes there’s more than one way to be right. Sometimes it’s worth being wrong.
Like with Shedeur Sanders and the 2025 NFL Draft. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.