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Cam Newton offers Shedeur Sanders career advice following drastic NFL draft slide

Carolina legend says Sanders has entered the NFL with the mentality of a defensive back, not a quarterback.
Tim Weaver|
Feb 7, 2025; New Orleans, LA, USA; Cam Newton on Radio Row at the Super Bowl LIX media center.
Feb 7, 2025; New Orleans, LA, USA; Cam Newton on Radio Row at the Super Bowl LIX media center. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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Carolina Panthers

The biggest surprise in the 2025 NFL draft was arguably that the Carolina Panthers actually put together one of the best drafts in the league. However, according to most folks the top story coming out of this past weekend was of course the huge slide by the draft's consensus No. 2 quarterback, Colorado's Shedeur Sanders.

Heading into the draft Sanders' projections were all over the place, generally falling somewhere between top-10 and the second round of the draft. However, he wound up sliding all the way to Day 3, when the Cleveland Browns traded up in the fifth round with the Seattle Seahawks to take him at No. 144 overall.

In the days since there's been a lot of speculation regarding the slide, with some alleging that Sanders and his camp did not come off well in pre-draft interviews. It sounds like former Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton agrees, at least in part. Newton seems to think Sanders would help himself by smiling more, for one thing.

On the most-recent edition of his podcast, Newton went further - claiming that Sanders was entering the league with the mentality of a defensive back rather than a franchise quarterback. Here's what he had to say.

The smiling thing is probably just a little bit overblown, but there's some truth to what Newton is saying, here. Sanders should have come off the board earlier than he did - as to what specifically made teams pass on him several times is up to them individually - but it's clear something was holding them back.

Nevertheless, Newton expects Sanders to start at some point for the Browns this year, and he looks like the most-talented quarterback on their roster, so he certainly should.

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Tim Weaver
TIM WEAVER

Tim Weaver has been writing about the NFL since the 2013 season for multiple teams and outlets, including USA Today and The Sporting News. He currently covers the Seattle Seahawks and Carolina Panthers for On SI.