SHEDEUR SANDERS DIDN’T FAIL AND DIDN’T SPEED — HE THREW TWO SCORING PASSES
Someone must play quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, and if we’re hearing his father and LeBron James, Sanders’ preseason debut was memorable enough to deserve consideration from Kevin Stefanski
On a summer’s night when the 199th pick in the 2000 draft was memorialized with a 12-foot statue, the 144th choice in the 2025 draft threw two touchdown passes. If you want to draw comparisons, looniness is apt when Shedeur Sanders plays for the Cleveland Browns, who once drafted Johnny Manziel and gave a guaranteed $230 million to a man accused of sexual assault and inappropriate conduct by 24 women.
Tom Brady thought so poorly of Sanders, though they often traded text messages, he refused to draft him in Las Vegas with seven picks in the first four rounds. Maybe he knew something stupid would happen: Shedeur drove 91 mph in a 65 mph zone on June 5, then drove 101 mph in a 60 mph zone on June 17. When the sculpture was unveiled Friday in New England, let me recall the abject disrespect they shared from the fathers of their sport. Brady survived and became the greatest quarterback ever. Sanders might sit in his civvies and watch the regular season as his team’s fourth-stringer.
But is it also possible he’ll start for the Browns? Shoot me, if necessary. But I must acknowledge the potential, shockingly, because the franchise and Sanders are on very bizarre planes of life. He did outplay Carolina’s veteran passer, Andy Dalton, and posted a rating of 106.8 in 45 plays with no interceptions or fumbles. He completed 14 of 23 passes for 138 yards in a 30-10 win over the Panthers. For now, at least, he makes more sense than 40-year-old Joe Flacco, who might break a leg. He makes more sense than Kenny Pickett or another rookie, Dillon Gabriel. His scoring passes of 12 and 7 yards, to Kaden Davis, were impressive enough that Deion Sanders fired up his phone and forgot his running joke that he depends on Depends after bladder surgery.
“Yes! Lawd! Yes!” Coach Prime wrote from Boulder.
He wasn’t alone. “That young (man) looking good out there,” LeBron James posted on social media. “Keep going UP!!! HEAD down on the grind and HEAD high to the most high. And I don’t wanna hear that ‘It’s only preseason’ b.s. Cause if he was out there not going in, y’all would be on his (butt) about it! So give credit and grace, lames.”
The only one who wasn’t happy was Shedeur. “I don’t feel like I took full advantage of the opportunity,” he said on TV in the fourth quarter. “But it’s something to work on and something to learn from. I don’t feel like I was sharp at all, honestly. I think I was OK.”
Then he apologized to his father. “Sorry, pops, I didn’t do what I was supposed to do fully,” he said.
His coach, Kevin Stefanski, didn’t exactly dismiss Sanders in his press conference. Will more reps be available in practice? Will he play against Philadelphia in the next preseason game? “I’m honestly not focused there,” Stefanski said. “I think the guys need to continue to earn their roles. That’s what these guys are doing. Honestly, I'm pleased with the way Shedeur played. I’m pleased with the way the offense operated tonight.”
Nothing is wrong with a depth chart that wobbles. The Browns are one of the NFL’s worst teams. The question is whether they want Sanders’ head to rattle all season, in a division against Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. But making him sit means they’re giving up on him before next year’s draft, when more quarterbacks are available high in the first round. Two touchdown passes should be more than enough to earn another try.
“When I get out there, it's just doing what I gotta do,” Sanders said. “Everything else is not in my hands, so I don't worry about it. I just don’t think that deep into everything, because it’s nothing you’re gonna be able to control. So why put energy in something that you can’t control?”
Remember, Sanders has more supporters beyond Deion and LeBron. “What is wrong with NFL owners, are they STUPID?…He should be ‘picked’ IMMEDIATELY by a team that wants to WIN,” wrote President Trump, before Shedeur was pranked by the son of the Atlanta Falcons’ defensive coordinator.
There are times he wonders about his family. But when Deion is healthy and Shedeur is firing, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the Sanders bunch is No. 2 in the football world. The Mannings are still No. 1, with Arch trying to win the Heisman Trophy and the national championship at Texas. Coach Prime wanted to visit Shedeur last week and was told not to bother, visiting son Shilo with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“It’s a gift and a curse at the same time,” Shedeur said of public life. “I don’t want him coming to see me right now because I want to get to where I want to go, then for him to see me. Like, nah, you can’t be proud of me right now. I got to get to where I’m going, and I know it’s a lot I got to do to get there.”
Friday was a start when it could have been a finish. Once, similar comments were written about Brady. “I never dreamed I’d be standing here 2 1/2 decades later, made of bronze and frozen in time,” he said. “It actually feels pretty appropriate given my 40-yard dash time. This is the first time in my life that Boston sportswriters will describe me as chiseled. So that’s a major, major win.”
For now, Sanders must turn on his car and drive within the speed limit. Then he must remember what he did so well on a night he didn’t like. We haven’t heard the last of him.
He is changing minds, as his father has done forever.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.