Shedeur Sanders’ slide from potential first-round pick to being selected in the fifth round with the 144th pick by the Cleveland Browns has been the story of the 2025 NFL Draft. But Sanders, the former Colorado quarterback and son of NFL great Deion Sanders, is already quite familiar with the spotlight.
Here’s a timeline of Shedeur Sanders’ college career to now:
Fall 2021: Sanders began his first of two seasons as a quarterback for FCS Jackson State, where his father Deion was the head coach. Notably, before the 2022 season, Deion Sanders flipped the No. 1 overall recruit, Travis Hunter, from Florida State to Jackson State. Over Shedeur’s two seasons, the Tigers went 11-2 and 12-1, with back-to-back SWAC conference titles.
Spring 2023: Deion Sanders took over as the head coach at Colorado, a program reaching for air with just two winning seasons since 2005. Coach Prime quickly made waves by pursuing one of the most dramatic Year 1 roster flips in college football history. He and his staff brought along more than 40 players from Jackson State, including Deion’s sons Shedeur and Shilo, plus Hunter. That required a controversial purge of the Buffaloes’ roster, which went 1-11 the season before Deion took over. By the end of the spring, 53 scholarship players transferred out of the program.
Fall 2023: Colorado got off to a 3-0 start to the 2023 season, but won just one of eight games the rest of the way. Shedeur finished the season completing 69.3 percent of his passes for 3,230 yards with a 27-to-3 TD-to-INT ratio.
Shedeur quickly became known for his flashy and confident demeanor. His signature celebration of flashing his Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 15500 watch (which retails for a little over $40,000) was included in EA Sports’ College Football 25 and reenacted by celebrities.
Fall 2024: In the first year of a 12-team College Football Playoff, the Buffaloes briefly garnered postseason buzz as they won five of their last six games in a wide-open Big 12 race. Shedeur set program single-season records for passing yards (4,134), completion rate (74 percent), touchdowns (37) and quarterback rating (168.2). He was named the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year.
Off the field, Sanders’ star power rose. With strong interests in fashion and music (his rap song “Perfect Timing” played over the Folosom Field PA system after he scored touchdowns), Sanders had the highest NIL valuation in college athletics at approximately $6 million, per reports. Colorado later retired Shedeur’s jersey.
Winter 2025: Early in the draft process, Shedeur was beside Miami quarterback Cam Ward in the discussion for the No. 1 pick. But as Ward solidified himself as the top quarterback, Sanders’ status grew increasingly unclear.
Sanders accepted an invitation to the East-West Shrine Bowl, but participated in interviews only. He also did not work out at the Scouting Combine.
“I like that I’m able to get in the forefront of everything and they’re able to understand me and ask me whatever questions they want,” Sanders said after meeting with the Tennessee Titans, New York Giants and Cleveland Browns at the Shrine Bowl. “I’m not ducking. I ain’t hiding. I’m right here, live in the flesh, able to answer whatever questions are out there.”
Ward and other top prospects similarly sat out of combine drills, a decision that has become increasingly popular in recent years. The decisions spoke largely to the confidence Sanders and his camp had in his status as a top pick. As early as May 2024, in response to criticism about Shedeur, Deion posted on X: “He will be a top 5 pick. Where yo son going ? Lololol I got time today. Lololol.”
Shedeur’s status wasn’t as clear to NFL teams, and skipping some of the evaluation steps may have proved to be more of a risk than a reward.
Spring 2025: Sanders worked out for NFL teams at Colorado’s pro day. He showcased an accurate deep ball but had some wobbly throws on shorter routes. League evaluators described his arm strength as good but not great.
Sanders was reported to have interviewed well in some places, but very poorly in others, leading up to the draft. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler slid Shedeur from No. 21 in his post-combine mock draft to out of the first round entirely by his final mock.
NFL Draft Round 1: Sanders did not attend the draft live from Green Bay, but the Day 1 broadcast on Thursday looked into his watch party in Canton, Texas, multiple times. Ward (No. 1 to the Titans) and Jaxson Dart (No. 25 to the Giants) were the only quarterbacks selected in Round 1. After, in a video posted by Deion, Shedeur said, “We didn’t expect this of course but I feel like with God anything is possible, everything is possible. … Tomorrow’s the day. We’re going to be happy regardless. Legendary.”
NFL Draft Rounds 2-3: Sanders spent most of the day at the top of many “best available” boards, but his name went uncalled on Friday evening, making for one of the steepest high-profile draft slides in recent years and sparking plenty of discourse on the draft broadcasts and social media. He also fell victim to a prank call from someone acting as Saints general manager Mickey Loomis.
Shedeur’s Round 1 slide was a result of teams not viewing him as a first-round talent. But his fall from Day 2 put his off-field character questions at the forefront.
As Round 3 approached its final picks, Shedeur posted on X: “Thank you GOD for EVERYTHING.”
NFL Draft Round 4: After sliding behind five quarterbacks selected in the draft’s first three rounds, Shedeur posted to X at the start of Day 3 on Saturday: “Another day another opportunity to get a chance to play the game I love. Thank you GOD #LEGENDARY.”
NFL Draft Round 5: After 143 players were drafted, the Browns traded up in the fifth round to select Sanders, ending one of the biggest NFL Draft slides in history.
(Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
