As Shedeur Sanders readied himself for a live interview with NFL Network on Thursday, a public address went out over the intercom system at the Ford Center field inside the Dallas Cowboys’ practice facility complex in Frisco, Texas. Across the field, a multitude of players were going though combine-style workouts in front of NFL coaches, scouts and executives. Suddenly, an announcement boomed through the 12,000-seat mini stadium.
The message: Shedeur Sanders would not be working out at the Big 12’s joint pro day.
As the Colorado quarterback and soon-to-be NFL Draft pick went on air with the network, he looked surprised.
“I didn’t expect to hear my name today,” Sanders said into the camera with a smile. “I didn’t expect that.”
The announcement was meant to address a misunderstanding that had been floating around Thursday’s event, when Sanders would be making an appearance and speaking to teams, but not working out. Instead, his much-anticipated pro day throwing session is slated for April 4, when Colorado will stage its individual team event for the NFL, which head coach Deion Sanders expects to be attended by representatives of all 32 NFL franchises.
It was a fitting moment in the Sanders pre-draft process, when information and perception about his draft stock seem to be in a constant tug-of-war between debate and correction. Or if you were to borrow the assessments of Shedeur and Deion during Thursday’s NFL Network appearance: hats and lies.
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At the very least, it was another interesting window into what continues to swirl around Shedeur, with NFL Network posing questions about how the experience has continued to unfold leading to April’s draft. Included in that experience, the critical reports about Sanders’ alleged demeanor during NFL scouting combine interviews and some speculated fluctuations in his draft stock that have placed him anywhere from the No. 2 overall pick to late in the first round.
On Thursday, Shedeur noted that the journey is “definitely a learning experience” while expressing gratitude for the support system around him — including his father Deion, who went through his own NFL pre-draft process in 1989 before ultimately getting selected by the Atlanta Falcons with the No. 5 overall pick. The elder Sanders coached Shedeur all four of his college seasons, including two at Jackson State and then his junior and senior seasons at Colorado.
“We always understood to block out the noise, even from Jackson State and Colorado,” Shedeur told NFL Network. “There’s a lot of critics, there’s a lot of hate. But we know what to do. We know how to handle that in every way, so we remain happy. … Either you’re gonna be watching or you’re gonna be talking about it. It’s gonna be one of the two, so I’d rather be the one getting talked about than the one just watching, hating on another guy.”
The pre-draft “noise” has certainly lived up to its billing, with NFL teams waiting to see Shedeur go through a throwing workout while expressing mixed feelings about his game tape and their perceptions of his abundance of confidence. The more hard-edged — and very much anonymous — criticisms labeled him arrogant and disconnected in interviews.
As you would expect, that touched a nerve with Deion Sanders, who was asked about the critical reports Thursday and wasted no time getting to a blunt assessment.
Asked by NFL Network about reports that had been critical of his son’s interviews, Sanders replied flatly, “Now that was a lie.”
Asked how he prepared his son for this kind of experience, Sanders replied, “You mean the lies or the interviews?”
He went on to say Shedeur was “built for” the interview process with NFL teams, leaning on his experience being in the spotlight most of his life as a football player, and the success that he had put on film in college. But the “lies,” that was a different set of circumstances.
“The lies, that’s gonna be that,” Deion said. “But we’re great with adversity. We’ve always been through adversity. We’ve always been challenged with adversity and the naysaying and the doubting. He is built for that. He’s the most qualified young man that plays that position that’s built for that, and to be in front of the lights and to continuously shine.”
The subject could have ended there. But Deion had one other message he wanted to convey.
“We like to call that stuff out, though,” Deion said, smiling. “I know who it is. You’re going to make me call him out. You know what team, yeah, all right? You gotta understand it. Don’t make me pull behind the curtains and step in that thing.”
NFL Network’s Bucky Brooks laughed and noted it wasn’t the time to get “petty.”
“We keep it on the high road,” Brooks said to Deion.
To which Deion responded through laughter, “I try to keep it on the high road but I don’t know the address.”
Without a doubt, it’s a claim that will raise some eyebrows across a curious league. For now, it was just another window into Shedeur Sanders’ arguably being the most intriguing — and certainly the most debated and discussed — player in this upcoming draft.
