Inside the Stunning Fall of Shedeur Sanders: What NFL Executives Are Really Saying | 4 Downs

There were 257 players chosen over the weekend during the 2025 NFL Draft, but it was the one who free-fell to the fifth round that drove the conversation and hovered over Green Bay like dark snowclouds on a grey winter’s day.

Shedeur Sanders was viewed by many as the second-ranked quarterback in this year’s class, and expected to be chosen as high as inside the top-10 selections. However, as Sanders slipped out of the first round, then through Friday night and the first four rounds, a national conversation centered around race, the temperament of black athletes, and how NFL evaluators view the quarterback position took hold.

Sanders’ slide was the storyline of draft weekend which will likely blow into Cleveland when the Browns kick off rookie minicamp on the banks of Lake Erie, and again when training camp begins, only to be revived during the preseason this summer and once Joe Flacco presumably leads the offense onto the field in September be discussed anew.

In the background, though, the Jacksonville Jaguars aggressively maneuvered around the board, casting picks present and future around like chips at the roulette wheel in a way Les Snead would be envious of. The New York Giants added a potential Defensive Player of the Year candidate in Abdul Carter, and a quarterback they think can be their future in Jaxson Dart. Meanwhile, the host Packers added speeeeeeeeeeeed at wide receiver, Howie Roseman and the Philadelphia Eagles bolstered an elite defense with elite talent all three levels, as the Eagles tend to do.

Then, the Browns released the tension in the air by taking Sanders about 18 hours after President Donald Trump of all people implored someone, anyone in the league to take Sanders based on his :: checks notes :: “PHENOMENAL GENES.”

Seriously.

Maybe we shouldn’t have been that surprised by Shedeur’s slide, after that.

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Inside this column, we’ll reveal the teams that NFL Executives believe had the strongest drafts, the picks I believe are going to wind up being the steals of the entire draft, and, we’ll weigh the possibility of a reader’s fun suggestion for how to improve the draft’s chances of ever coming to fruition.

First, though, I spent much of Saturday afternoon into the evening speaking to league executives and evaluators to find out what caused Sanders to slide and how all of the expectations became so warped leading up to the draft.

Let’s get after it …

First Down: Sources Explain Why Shedeur Sanders Dropped to Day 3 of the NFL Draft

After a weekend of breathless speculation about what caused Sanders to plummet, with the draft itself playing out as merely a backdrop, the Browns finally stopped his slide after passing on him six times, including selecting former Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel in the third round before bringing Sanders to Cleveland on Saturday.

So, what caused Sanders to fall from being in the conversation as the No. 5 overall pick after the Browns traded back, to being chosen by the Browns after trading up in the fifth round?

That’s the question I posed to a handful of evaluators late Saturday afternoon.