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Deion Sanders has made it very clear there are some teams he won’t let his son Shedeur play for as the highly-touted quarterback prepares to turn his attention to the NFL Draft. We may not know which franchises are on that list, but we got a clearer picture thanks to the hints Coach Prime recently dropped.
NFL teams pour a ton of resources into the draft in the hopes of squeezing as much value as possible out of their picks, and it would obviously be foolish to use one on a player who’s made it clear they have no interest in being a member of your organization.
That tends to be a fairly rare scenario in the grand scheme of things, but John Elway, Eli Manning, and Jim Kelly are among the notable names who all refused to play for the team that secured their rights in the NFL Draft (the first two were promptly traded, while Kelly was eventually forced to suit up for the Bills when faced with no viable alternative after the USFL imploded).
As things currently stand, Shedeur Sanders is expected to be one of the most sought-after players in the upcoming NFL Draft, (he’s widely viewed as the best QB that will be up for grabs), but Deion Sanders has made it very clear he’s going to be an active participant in the preselection process while ensuring his son (as well as fellow Colorado standout Travis Hunter) land with a team that won’t squander their talent.
Coach Prime once again confirmed that will be the case when he stopped by Speak On It on Tuesday for a chat where he asserted he doesn’t have any plans to turn potential discussions into a sideshow while saying “I’ll do that privately” when it comes to giving blacklisted teams a heads up.
.@DeionSanders says he will step in if the wrong team drafts Shedeur. 👀 pic.twitter.com/WK67vSyouY
— Speak (@SpeakOnFS1) November 12, 2024
He also declined to get too into the weeds when it came to the teams he won’t let Shedeur play for, although it’s not too hard to read between the lines based on his response:
“Somebody that can handle the quarterback that he is. Somebody that can handle understanding what he’s capable of. Someone that has had success in the past handling quarterbacks or someone in an organization who understands what they’re doing; not just throwing you out there amongst the wolves…
He has a true gift and it comes from God and he loves the game of football…This kid loves this game and he has an insatiable appetite to win, and I want somebody to be able to propel him to the next level.”
As things currently stand, there are a handful of teams in need of a QB who could end up in contention to draft Shedeur but seemingly fail to meet those guidelines; the Panthers, Jaguars, and Titans have largely failed to develop seemingly talented QBs in recent years and seem like potential candidates for exclusion based on Deion’s criteria.
Sanders may attempt to handle things privately, but it’s hard to imagine those discussions will stay under wraps for long based on how quickly juicy information like that tends to get leaked to NFL insiders. We’ve still got a long way to go until the draft actually plays out, but this promises to be one of the more intriguing storylines.