Report Says Raiders’ No. 6 Pick is Earliest Shedeur Sanders Will Be Drafted

The Raiders’ chances of getting Shedeur Sanders with the sixth-overall pick seemed like a pipe dream a month ago, but coming away from the NFL Combine this week it sounds like Sanders might be in for a slide on draft day.

In fact, league insider Tony Pauline believes the sixth pick might be the earliest Sanders can expect to be taken in the draft.

“Teams are cooling on Shedeur Sanders for a number of reasons,” Pauline reported on Sunday.

“The first being that Sanders showed little to no improvement in his game last season and made some poor choices. People are also a little turned off by the antics since January,” Pauline continued. “The Colorado quarterback chose not to throw at the combine, which is not unusual at all for a top-rated signal-caller. Yet this comes off the Shrine Bowl where Sanders was expected to at least participate in the individual passing drills, yet he showed up on the field for just the first day of practice, making a brief visit dressed in sweats.”

“People tell me that they do not believe the New York Giants would select him with the third pick, and the very earliest he’ll come off the board is the Raiders, who own the sixth selection.”

It’s been known for a while that Sanders and his family would like him to be drafted by the Raiders and Q Myers, who hosts a weekday radio show on the team’s flagship radio station, believes (or at least did two weeks ago) the Colorado quarterback has been sending subtle messages to the Raiders in recent weeks.

Myers talked about the mixed signals coming from the Sanders camp on social media and he believes the Sanders family is hinting to the Raiders to move up in the draft to get him.

“[Deion] said he would do it behind the scenes, which I think is a smart way to do things. If you’re going to do that, if you’re going to use your ability to kind of navigate where your son is drafted, do it behind the scenes,” Myers said on Raider Nation Radio’s Unnecessary Roughness. 

“You don’t have to go out and embarrass an organization. But all we’ve heard as of late… it’s like everything is ‘Cleveland, Cleveland, Cleveland. Hey, Shedeur would love to go to Cleveland. Shedeur would have no problem playing at Cleveland.’”

But like everyone else, Myers isn’t sold on the idea that Deion is going to let Shedeur go to the Browns.

“It seems like Shedeur, and it sounds like maybe Deion and the Sanders camp, are trying to make sure that maybe he doesn’t necessarily go to Cleveland, but he doesn’t necessarily go to number six, right?” Myers speculated. “What I mean by that is Field Yates had his mock draft up on the screen one day Shedeur was in the gym, and of course Deion Sanders Jr., who films everything, is filming and documenting everything, and he’s looking at the mock draft that says ‘Raiders, Shedeur is six,’ and he’s like, ‘That’s cap, bro. I’m not going six.’”

Earlier in the month, ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky talked about the fit in Las Vegas being perfect for Sanders.

“Easiest decision of the draft and, by far, the perfect situation for Shedeur Sanders. I do think there’s some young talent in Las Vegas [with] Brock Bowers being the premier kind of mainstay. I love the fact that he [would be] with Pete Carroll because you know that defensively they’re going to force him to score 35 or 40 a game,” Orlovsky said on ESPN’s NFL Live.

“I also love the fact that their new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly the collegiate ties, so the new age offense and some of the stuff that Shedeur is comfortable, with also understanding how the NFL game works. If you were Shedeur Sanders, you would take [the Raiders] in a heartbeat. It would be perfect for him.”

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what Orlovsky, or anyone else, thinks about how Sanders would fit with the Raiders. The important opinion belongs Tom Brady.

If Brady and the Raiders are sold on Shedeur, there’s a good chance he and Coach Prime will find a way to get Shedeur to Las Vegas.

x: @raidersbeat