I don’t know how many people knew what to expect when Deion Sanders took over the head coach job at the University of Colorado but you knew it was going to come with lots of flash and fanfare. His arrival also came with his son, Shedeur Sanders who has taken the college football world by storm as the Buffaloes starting quarterback.
And while everyone has been enthralled with Sanders play on the field, his total package has made it a rather polarizing figure and it came to a head last week against Arizona State.
Colorado squeaked past Arizona State 27-24 and after listening to it from the Sun Devil faithful, Sanders ran over to the students’ section and did his signature flex pose where he showed off his watch to all who looked.
Social media was torn on the behavior and of course, the debates degenerated into the typical rhetoric. I’ll let you go find those arguments, I don’t see the value in highlighting either side.
For me, it is all about how the NFL views what Sanders is doing and whether it will matter to them. As a player, Sanders has some impressive tools. He’s improving in his field vision, can make all the throws and is athletic enough to keep defenses honest.
Make no mistake, there will be teams who view Sanders showboating as a negative and they have every right to do it. This is a loaded quarterback class for the 2024 NFL draft and teams are going to be able to scrutinize prospects much more closely.
At this point, we have Sanders squarely in the second tier of prospects behind USC’s Caleb Williams. Williams has set himself apart from the rest of the class but Sanders is in with Washington’s Michael Penix Jr. North Carolina’s Drake Maye, Oregon’s Bo Nix and Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy and LSU’s Jayden Daniels. If a team has to decide between Nix and Sanders, they can look at how well Sanders is playing in spite of the lack of talent around him and give him a bump or they might view his theatrics as a potential distraction and knock him down on their board.
