Why Shedeur Sanders fell out of Round 1 of the 2025 NFL Draft

This isn’t some grand conspiracy or anything like that.

The biggest story of the 2025 NFL Draft wasn’t the Jacksonville Jaguars’ massive swing to trade up for WR/CB Travis Hunter, it wasn’t the massive run on linemen in the first round.

It was, as always, a slide. A very prominent slide.

Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders was not picked in the first round of the draft, and it led to a lot of takes, on both sides of the coin:

If you search Sanders’ name on social media, the takes fly in like bats out of hell. However, I don’t really think this is a conspiracy theory against Sanders, nor is this an instance of the NFL’s racism (although we can point to a lot of other things which are an example of that). I think this case is pretty simple:

Shedeur Sanders was always a late first to early second round QB.

I had Sanders as my QB1, but also didn’t have any QBs as surefire first round locks. As much as I love how Sanders plays the game, his accuracy throwing over the middle of the field, and downfield touch, playing the quarterback position in the modern NFL is all about having a superpower. Everyone chases after their own version of Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen, guys who can dominate the game with their arm or their legs.

Sanders isn’t that.

Unlike top picks such as Jayden Daniels, Caleb Williams or Drake Maye, he doesn’t have that rocket arm or ability to take over the game with his legs. The NFL is willing to take chances on guys with that athleticism, because it’s easier to teach guys to throw a football. It’s a bit more difficult to teach a guy to be more athletic. This is the whole premise behind the Colts picking Anthony Richardson at No. 5 in 2023 (although they did kind of botch that process after he was drafted). While Sanders does some of the other things well, his athletic upside isn’t really as high as other QB prospects taken in the first round, with the exception of guys like Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr.

Which brings us to the second part of why he fell: NFL teams are much more willing to deal with other ... stuff if you’re a great athlete. I might be looking too far into the tea leaves, but this reasoning behind why Jaxson Dart was taken at 25 instead of Sanders feels really telling:

The most telling thing to come from this is the section where the source says the Giants felt “even more comfortable with Dart once the helmet came off.” That feels like they weren’t too thrilled with Sanders in meetings and interviews. But again, teams are willing to put up with some of those things if you’re supremely talented. Caleb Williams went first overall despite being picked over about how he loses or his mentality in a locker room. None of that stuff matters if a guy is overwhelmingly good, or has the athleticism to overcome it.

Sanders, to be frank, doesn’t really have that athletic second gear that most other guys have. While we’ve seen guys like Joe Burrow and CJ Stroud win despite not being overwhelming athletes, Sanders didn’t mitigate pressure the same way those guys did. While I think Dart in the first round is a massive reach, multiple things can be true. Sanders is a better QB, but also not one teams wanted to tie their franchise to with his limited athletic upside.

There’s no conspiracy around Sanders’ slide. He was just always more of a late first to early second round player, which is perfectly fine.