NFL Insider Reveals Why Media Was Shocked New Browns QB Shedeur Sanders Fell

New Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders was expected by many in the media to potentially be a Top Five pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Not only was he not a top pick, but he fell completely out of the first round. He also dropped out of Friday evening's second and third rounds before he was ultimately picked up on Saturday by the Browns with pick No. 144 (Round 5).

The Browns now have an intriguing quarterback room, to say the least, and there's going to be plenty of ink spilled this summer over how Cleveland will proceed with the grouping of Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel (who the Browns selected with pick No. 94 in the third round), and Sanders. Oh, and there's also Deshaun Watson, though a ruptured right Achilles will likely keep him off the field in 2025.

The Browns are collecting quarterbacks, and that's a story in itself, but right now, the whole sports world seems to be wondering how Sanders went from a perceived top pick to a selection on day three.

ESPN NFL Insider Dan Graziano talked to a few folks in the league. According to his reporting on "Get Up" on Monday morning (h/t On3), some of the shock was because the media as a whole didn't have its finger on the pulse of the NFL as it related to the league's evaluation of the quarterback.

Why is that? Well, as Graziano tells it, evaluators seemed hesitant to tell the truth about Sanders because of the ruckus that could cause with his father, Deion Sanders.

"I had a couple people say to me, to the point about media, you guys weren’t getting a complete picture, because the theory was that people inside these buildings were kind of scared to give their honest opinion of them because of the potential for criticism," Graziano said. “The potential for Deion and everything that’s around Shedeur to kind of come down on them. So I think we might have got some bad information in terms of how teams looked at him"

While there were certainly "off-field" concerns for Sanders — mainly the added spotlight that comes along with the "Coach Prime" circus — it's worth noting that for as good as he was at Colorado, he was far from the perfect NFL prospect. Sanders has a nice arm but it's not elite. He can move in the pocket, but he's not a game-changing scrambler. He also had a bad tendency to hold onto the ball for too long.

Those are all valid criticisms, but apparently, NFL front offices didn't want to put them out there in fear of getting backlash from "Coach Prime".

The Browns will now have to deal with that criticism and spotlight coming from Boulder, Colorado, if it turns out that Shedeur truly can't play at the NFL level. As it is, he's likely going to start training camp firmly fourth on the depth chart behind Flacco, Pickett and Gabriel, and that may not go over well with his father.

That's the risk the Browns knew they were taking when they drafted Sanders, though, and that's why they spent a fifth round pick on him instead of a first. If the juice isn't worth the squeeze come this fall, he'll be much easier to cut.