The NFL Draft is usually a pretty simple process: A team picks a player and then that player eventually signs a contract with his new team. However, things may not be so simple next year, and that's because it sounds like Deion Sanders might throw a wrench into things.
The Colorado coach has two of the top NFL Draft prospects in the country playing for him: Deion's son, Shedeur Sanders, is the quarterback for Colorado and the Buffaloes also have two-way star Travis Hunter, who plays both receiver and cornerback.
Both players are expected to be among the top-five picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, if not the top two. Although most players have no control over where they land, Shedeur and Hunter might, because Deion isn't going to let them go to just any team.
During an interview on FS1 Wednesday, the Colorado coach was asked if he might "step in" if the the wrong team tries to draft his son.
"Yea, but I'm not gonna do it publicly, I'd do it privately," Sanders said. "I'm going to be a dad until the cows come home, and with Travis as well."
It's been 20 years since anyone tried to pull a move like that in the draft. Back in 2004, Eli Manning said he wouldn't play for the Chargers, which is how he ended up with the Giants. Just days before the start of the draft that year, Manning's agent (Tom Condon) told the Chargers that Eli would sit out the entire 2004 season if the team drafted him with the first overall pick. The Chargers ended up ignoring the threat and taking Eli with the top pick anyway. However, Manning's threats did ultimately work because he ended up getting traded to the Giants less than an hour later.
If Deion makes a similar threat, that could scare a team away from drafting either of the two stars.
When it comes to possible NFL landing spots, Deion didn't name any specific teams for his son, but he did give a description of what he wants to see from a team that might draft Shedeur.
"Somebody that can handle the quarterback that he is, somebody that can handle, understanding what he's capable of," Deion said. "Someone that has had success in the past handling quarterbacks or someone in an organization that understands what they're doing. Not just throwing you out there amongst the wolves, if you don't have the support and the infrastructure of the team."
The Colorado coach added that if a team has a bad offensive line, that's something that can be worked around, he just wants to make sure Shedeur's future team has some organizational stability.
"Forget the line, he's played with lines that haven't been great, but he's been able to do his thing, but just the infrastructure of the team, the direction of where we're going," Deion said.
Our NFL Draft writers are pumping out new mocks every week and they all have a different opinion where Shedeur might land with teams ranging from the Giants to the Browns to the Raiders. Deion previously mentioned that he doesn't want Shedeur to land in a cold-weather city, so that could knock out the Giants and Browns.
Deion was asked in July about the possibility of Shedeur ending up in Las Vegas and he was all for it, "That would be nice." With Tom Brady now part of the team's ownership, they now fit the bill of someone in the organization who knows what it takes to be a quarterback in the NFL.
