Shedeur Sanders’ brash, bragadocious, and abrasive personality has made the young quarterback an easy target for members of sports media, especially after he fell to the Cleveland Browns in the fifth round of the NFL draft after being projected as a top ten pick.
That’s why it’s all the more shocking when Sanders is praised by someone in the sports media sphere. However, after an impressive preseason debut against the Carolina Panthers, where he completed 14 of his 23 pass attempts for 138 yards and two touchdowns, that’s exactly what happened.
“The Shedeur thing is the most predictable thing that media can do,” ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt said after the performance, according to Awful Announcing. “Because the fact that he slid to a third day pick was this, why did it happen? Is it this? Is it that? Is it the other thing?
“Then, it was like, ‘He’s being set up to fail.’ Then he plays, and it’s, ‘Oh, the NFL looks stupid for not drafting this guy.’ It’s like, my God.
“Preseason football is meant to do one of four things. If you think a guy’s good and he plays well, ‘See!’ If you think a guy’s good and he plays bad, ‘Well, it’s just the preseason and it doesn’t matter.’ If you think a guy’s bad and he plays well, ‘Well, it’s just the preseason and it doesn’t matter.’ And if you think a guy’s bad and he plays bad, ‘See!’ And that’s all anyone did here.”
It was then that Van Pelt gave Sanders his flowers.
“He handled it better than we did, I think,” SVP said about his colleagues in the media. “But it’s just so wild to watch people stumble all over themselves to turn the fact that he was being set up to fail into the fact that the NFL failed because they didn’t draft him. It was Week 1 of preseason, man. We’re pretty reasonable about how we digest most of this, not that.”
It’ll be interesting to see if Sanders continues to silence his detractors.