Peter Schrager: Media 'complicit' in perceived Shedeur Sanders slide in NFL Draft

Nobody saw Shedeur Sanders sliding from the first round to the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft coming prior to this past weekend. ESPN’s Peter Schrager has an interesting theory as to why everything unfolded for the former Colorado quarterback the way it did.

Evidently, it’s a combination of things to Schrager, and he wants to evaluate everything Sanders did during his pre-draft process. However, he thinks the media also played a role, propping up Sanders when the signs were there throughout the past couple of months.

“I think this is a combination of things. to your point. Caleb Williams last year met with one team. Refused any other interviews. Did not work at the combine. Did not do anything else. Said, ‘I’m only interviewing with the Bears. Don’t even bother talking to me,’ and he went first overall. You have to be a Caleb Williams style of quarterback, in that it is a bar-none first round prospect. As much as I want to go back and research what went down in the pre-draft process, we can go through all the stuff, I think the media is complicit in this as well,” Schrager stated, via Get Up.

“We also thought that that Shedeur Sanders was a first round prospect. Every mock draft you looked at up, until the draft, had Shedeur Sanders as a first round mock pick. So, I think this is a bigger picture story of, ‘Where did it all go wrong?’ This is one of the first prospects that was targeted as a first round pick the day of the draft to go the in the fifth round.

“I also think, just talking to NFL teams, you can have an unorthodox style of pre-draft, and you can have no agent, and you can say things like, ‘I’m going to come in there, and the second I come in there, I’m going to change your culture,’ and if you’re the starting quarterback or the first overall pick, you’re ready to run through a wall. To be a backup quarterback? That stuff might actually hurt you in a way that other quarterbacks will come in and say, ‘I’m just here to work, I want to help the starter,’ might have a bigger advantage in that process.”

All told, Peter Schrager makes some solid points, but all that matters now is what Shedeur Sanders does moving forward. He’ll either make the NFL look like fools for passing on him and allowing the Cleveland Browns to draft him in Round 5, or prove them right when it’s all said and done. The ball is in his court.