If one wishes to say something negative about Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders as a quarterback prospect – more to the point, as someone on whom an NFL team might consider spending a precious first-round pick – it’s not at all difficult to find elements of his game that warrant criticism.
Those who are paid to analyze the NFL Draft process widely consider him to possess arm talent that is considerably short of elite. Although his father is one of the greatest American athletes, ever, Shedeur is not viewed as particularly dynamic. He has been described as a player who too commonly will drift backward in the pocket, which exposes him to punishment from edge rushers taking a wide lane around offensive tackles.
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None of this is scintillating, but all of it is football. That’s the sport: Blocking, tackling, running, throwing and catching have been around for a century of the pro game. NFL football continues to increase in popularity each year because of the confluence of these fundamentals.
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There’s so much more sex appeal, though, in questioning a player’s character. That’s the kind of discourse that keeps the Bravo network in business.
And it’s so damned easy to do by allowing some source – a coach, a scout, a player personnel executive – to say these things without attribution. At least the Real Housewives say godawful things about one another in person, whether or not one invests credibility in those televised confrontations. NFL scouts deciding to demean the character of draft prospects may or may not believe what they’re saying; if they turn out to be wrong, only the journalist and the source (and maybe an involved editor) ever know. There is no consequence to the person making the statement.
Wednesday on Good Morning Football, regularly one of the best programs about any sport on American television, anonymous, highly inflammatory quotes about Sanders’ behavior were presented within the first five minutes.
“The worst formal interview I’ve ever been in my life,” Tom Pelissero said he was told by an assistant coach. “He’s so entitled. He takes unnecessary sacks. He never plays on time. He has horrible body language. He blames teammates … But the biggest thing is, he’s not that good.”
Sharing them here to emphasize the repugnance of the exercise feels exploitative. And there is some actual football in there. If only it had been left at that.
Even GMF analyst Kyle Brandt ripped the coach who gave this quote.
“That quote is bullcrap.”
As Deion Sanders’ son, as a potential first-round pick at the most glamorous and essential position in all of sports, Shedeur is the most obvious conversation piece in advance of Thursday’s event at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. The three-day NFL Draft would rank among America’s most popular spectator sports if it were, you know, a sport. So one of the stars of that show is going to be noticed, is going to be discussed.
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Why like this, though? It’s been going on for years, and it never has ceased to diminish the essence of NFL Draft coverage.
Indianapolis columnist Bob Kravitz, long ago my colleague at The Pittsburgh Press, wrote about this practice in an article on his Substack site Wednesday, in reaction to an anonymous player poll conducted by The Athletic that identified Pacers guard Tyrese Halliburton as the NBA’s “most overrated” player. Coach Rick Carlisle was sufficiently angered by the piece to declare the poll to be “bull”. He used the two-syllable version of that designation, though.
“I guess I’ve gotten increasingly queasy at the notion of giving anonymous sources free rein to be critical of others,” Kravitz wrote. As the journalist who broke the “Deflategate” story that led to NFL penalties against the Patriots and quarterback Tom Brady, Kravitz recognizes there are circumstances when anonymous sources can be essential to the publication of important material.
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Quotes about how a player comports himself in a private interview session hardly meet that standard.
And there’s the very good chance that such comments are more strategic than they are sincere. Any team that would like to see Sanders – or any player available – when they make their selection can engage in this tradecraft and hope it will discourage other teams higher in the draft order. There may be no value to it, but anyone who’s ever been involved in a job search, for instance, recognizes the value of that mid-morning coffee with a contact, or that phone call to someone already working at a desired destination. It might not work. It might lead to something. It helps to feel one has tried everything.
If everything includes such nonsense as impugning the reputation of someone who’s only just passed his 23rd birthday, who was named winner of the Johnny United Golden Arm Award as best college quarterback, who helped lift Colorado from a disastrous 1-11 the year before he arrived to 9-4 and a bowl game in his second season, it’s definitely better to do less.
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