Prior to the draft, Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders was one of the popular picks projected to the Raiders.
There was the connection to Tom Brady that the Sanders family had working in their favor, but most importantly, the Raiders needed a quarterback and a lot of analysts going into the draft were saying Shedeur was one of the top two quarterbacks in this year’s class.
Ultimately, the Raiders passed on Shedeur seven times in the draft and there have been a lot of conversations about why teams decided against taking him. Specifically for the Raiders, it was eye opening to see Brady allow his team to steer away from Shedeur even into the middle rounds of the draft.
Brady hasn’t spoken publicly on Shedeur’s fall in the draft, although his friend Michael Strahan shared a few thoughts this week on what Brady told him about Shedeur’s situation.
“I spent time with Tom Brady this past weekend and we watched the Draft and as Tom said, he’s an example, it doesn’t matter when you’re picked,” Strahan said on ABC’s Good Morning America.
“I don’t think this kid should’ve dropped to the fifth round, and I hate when you have unnamed sources,” Strahan added from his own opinion. “If you’re going to say something that bad to disparage a kid, put your name on it first of all.”
As for the rest of the league, FOX Sports host Colin Cowherd talked on The Herd on Wednesday about what he said is the “real reason” why Shedeur slid so far in the draft.
According to Cowherd, most of the NFL viewed Shedeur as a backup, and his personality and presence in the media was something they feared would become a distraction in some of the same ways Tim Tebow became a distraction with the New York Jets in 2012.
Joe Klatt was a guest on Cowherd’s show, and he agreed.
“I think it’s the thing that hurt him. It was the biggest issue,” Klatt said.
“Once you are viewed as a backup, it becomes more about your personality than it does your play, which is why some of those other guys actually went before him… Here’s the issue… no team wants the story to be in the backup quarterback’s locker. It’s not that they can’t control the narrative, they probably feel like they can control the narrative and the team, but they can’t control the media.”
x: @raidersbeat