He gamed the college football transfer portal last year. Now, former Cowboys' cornerback Deion Sanders is eyeing a bigger target.
The 2025 NFL Draft.
The Colorado Buffaloes head coach brought in a nearly 100% brand new roster at Boulder for the 2023 season. Other coaches quickly followed his lead.
Despite a 4-8 record in his first year at the highest level, he and his team were the darlings of college football last year.
Most of his coaching colleagues are getting ready for the upcoming season. NFL GMs are prepping for the draft next month.
But Sanders – who goes by “Coach Prime” these days — has cast his eye further into the future. Not only is he looking to land two of his players in the first round, he's aiming for two out of the first four picks overall.
And one of them, he believes, will be his son, Shedeur Sanders, the Buffaloes' starting quarterback.
The other, he says, will be two-way starter Travis Hunter. Hunter was in the Heisman conversation despite a lacerated liver that knocked him out of several games.
But that isn't all Sanders is looking to accomplish in April of 2025.
In The Footsteps Of Elway And Manning
Appearing on the Million Dollarz Worth Of Game podcast (Episode 266), Sanders hinted at his plans for his son and his star cornerback/receiver.
Namely, which NFL team will be drafting them. Or more precisely, which teams wouldn't be drafting his players.
“I know where I want them to go,” Sanders said on the podcast last week. “So, it's certain cities that ain't going to happen. It's going to be an Eli.”
Sanders was referencing the 2004 NFL Draft with the San Diego Chargers holding the No. 1 pick.
Eli Manning was the obvious No. 1 pick that year.
But the Manning clan informed the Chargers that Eli's services were not available to them, even if they drafted him. The Chargers went ahead and drafted him.
Then San Diego shipped him off to the Giants after New York had selected Phillip Rivers.
The Giants got two Super Bowl victories out of the deal. The Chargers are still looking for their first Super Bowl visit since 1994.
John Elway did something similar prior to the 1983 Draft.
He was the clear No. 1 pick that year, with the Baltimore Colts holding the No. 1 pick in that draft.
And Elway had no intention of playing for the Colts. He even threatened to play baseball with the New York Yankees if Baltimore drafted him but did not trade him.
The Colts managed to negotiate a trade with Denver after going ahead and taking Elway.
The next year they packed up for Indianapolis and did very little until Peyton Manning arrived nearly two decades later.
The Broncos?
They went to five Super Bowls and won two of them with Elway at quarterback.
Is Shedeur The Next Eli?
But here's the problem with Sanders' plan – which includes the Dallas Cowboys and Atlanta Falcons as acceptable NFL destinations.
Eli Manning and John Elway were all but locks to succeed in the NFL. Both were three-year starters at the top level of college football.
Shedeur Sanders has had one year at the top level. His second year, this fall, will also be his last in college football.
His first two years were at Jackson State – hardly a college football powerhouse – where he went 21-3 against inferior opponents.
In Colorado last year, after a solid start, he finished 4-7. In only two of his final seven starts did he throw for more than 270 yards.
Oregon held him to 159 yards in his fourth start, solving how to contain the Buffaloes' quarterback after he'd averaged 417 yards in the first three games.
His completion percentage and just three interceptions for the year are highly touted, but misleading.
He tended to hold the ball and take a sack rather than risk an incompletion. Or even a possible interception.
Could he improve in 2024? Of course.
But as it stands now, I don't see him being a No. 1 pick nor even having the clout to dictate who will draft him.
If anything, I think Hunter will be drafted before Sanders in 2025 especially if he can continue to put up the two- way numbers he put up before the injury.
The Bigger Issue
Somehow, I doubt Sanders' plan to pick where his players will play in the NFL will pan out.
But it does plant the seed of an idea. In soil already prepared for it to grow thanks to not only the transfer portal, but the rise of NIL in college football.
College players are not only getting paid by virtue of being players, they are making their recruiting decision based on what they can get via NIL.
How much longer until those same players start demanding that they – and not the NFL owners and GMs – get to decide which team they will play professionally for?
And really, would that be a bad thing?
Consider.
The NFL Draft was originally designed to keep the bigger, better teams from grabbing the best players every year. That would have made it harder for a bad team to improve their roster.
But the current salary cap of today would also prevent that from happening.
You would run out of money long before you could sign the best 22 players at each position, right?
So why not toss the draft altogether? Make March 1st the first day of the new year and its every man for himself.
Restricted and unrestricted free agents – along with the incoming college players who so declare themselves ready to enter the league – all jump into the pool at the same time.
And let the feeding frenzy begin.
Would it be chaotic? Absolutely.
Would the stockholders of companies that make popcorn become filthy rich? Oh, yes.
And me personally, I'd love every minute of it.
Why not let the players choose?
In every other profession it is the applicant who chooses who they'll apply to work for. Maybe its time we let the pro athletes have the same privilege?
Maybe “Coach Prime” has the right idea – just for the wrong reason – after all.
