Giants' Malik Nabers Slams Critics of Shedeur Sanders After Fall During NFL Draft

Shedeur Sanders shockingly wasn't picked until the fifth round of the NFL draft.

Former Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders. / Nick Tre. Smith-Imagn Images

New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers was among the many people baffled that Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders fell to the fifth round of the NFL draft last week. Once projected to be a first-round, if not top-10 pick, Sanders was not taken until the Cleveland Browns picked him on Day 3 of the draft in what was perhaps the most shocking fall in draft history.

Nabers did not agree with many of the criticisms of Sanders's play that contributed to his draft fall, including that Sanders takes too many sacks.

"You don't do something like that to somebody like that," Nabers said on 7pm in Brooklyn With Carmelo Anthony. “You can't knock his talent. I heard a lot of things about he takes unnecessary sacks. He had a bad o-line. He threw 70% with a bad o-line. Talk about his escaping the pocket. You can pull up plenty of clips of him escaping 3-4 tackles and throwing it down the field. Most of his receivers had 7-8 touchdowns. He played with Travis Hunter, he won the Biletnikoff [Award.] Some things you just can't knock.”

Melo & Malik Nabers were HOT Shedeur Sanders slipped to the 5th round of the NFL Draft 😬

Malik: "He was the talk of the top 2 QB's in his class. There's no way in hell he goes 5th round."

Melo: "This is an attack at Prime." pic.twitter.com/n01uj4F7YS

— 7PM in Brooklyn (@7PMinBrooklyn) May 1, 2025

Nabers also called out critiques about Sanders's personality.

'We gotta stop making feelings with how people play linger," he said. "Yeah he might have some things that he might say on camera off the field, that don't have to do with how he plays football. ... Everybody got different personalities. You never gonna meet somebody that's got the same personality anywhere. We all made differently. For them to judge on just the things that he says or how he carries himself. How he carries himself is all about how his dad raised him. We all know Deion. They was just doing that to show how they bigger than what he wanted to stand for."

Sanders fell in the draft likely due to a combination of factors. To start, many NFL evaluators viewed Sanders as a second-round talent rather than a first-round player. Still, no one projected Sanders falling to Day 3 of the draft. That likely occurred because of reports saying Sanders did not impress or do well in interviews with multiple coaches and teams during the draft process, including the Giants, who reportedly once had him as the top player on their draft board.

Even so, Nabers stuck up for how Sanders was treated and certainly doesn't think he should have fallen that far in the draft.

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