I got a text from a buddy a couple of weeks ago. Broncos fan. Watches college football casually. He wanted to know why Cam Ward (Miami) had so clearly become the consensus top quarterback in the 2025 NFL draft over Shedeur Sanders — a player who, every time he watched Colorado, seemed to always have the big throw in his bag, always escape the sack, always lift the team and strap it to his back.
It was a fair question. Throw out all the trappings of the scouting process — traits and developmental arcs and personalities and leadership and culture fits and scheme fits and other buzzwords — and Sanders looks like a really good pro quarterback. His dad, Deion, taught him a thing or two about that — and he can clearly play the position well. Of all FBS quarterbacks since 1956 who attempted at least 875 pass attempts, only one completed more than 71% of his passes: Sanders (71.8%).
But as my buddy texted me, Sanders’ slide in mock drafts was beginning — not just to the clear second quarterback selected after Ward, but into a muddled race for that spot. Three weeks ago, ESPN BET had Sanders listed at -1600 to be the No. 2 quarterback selected, an implied probability of about 94%. Now, he’s down to -280 — an implied probability of around 74%. Jaxson Dart (Ole Miss) is gaining steam, but behind him is Jalen Milroe (Alabama) — a surprise invitee to the draft in Green Bay, Wisconsin, usually an honor withheld for likely first-round picks. Draft analyst Field Yates’ bold prediction for the top of the draft is that Sanders won’t be the second quarterback off the board.
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It feels like Sanders is falling down draft boards. But draft slides are often more media concoctions than reflections of reality for two reasons. The first is that players don’t really “fall” during the draft process, except for major events such as injury or poor athletic testing. Rather, the media’s opinion on a player in January is mostly just that — the media’s opinion. Perhaps it is informed by a few casual conversations with decision-makers such as general managers and head coaches, who haven’t yet watched the tape or met the individual, and by a few more conversations with scouts who have done that legwork, but don’t get the final say. But the information in January is a trickle. By April, the tap opens. Good reporters extract the truth of how teams really see these players, and prospects “rise” and “fall” accordingly, as the media opinion correlates more closely to the league’s opinion.
The second reason is that, despite those good reporters doing their due diligence, the media are often wrong. It is not hard to go year by year and find an example. For all of the quarterback-centric reporting, Michael Penix Jr. at No. 8 to the Falcons last year still left everyone’s jaws on the floor. Will Levis, Malik Willis and Matt Corral all attended the first nights of recent drafts and didn’t hear their names until Day 2. The week of the 2018 draft, the Browns were choosing between Sam Darnold and Josh Allen until, suddenly, dark horse candidate Baker Mayfield took the spot.
So, Sanders might be falling. Dart might be the second QB selected, another team might trade up for Milroe and Sanders might hear his name called on Day 2. Or Sanders might not be falling, and he’ll go in the top 10, where he was projected to go in January. We don’t know, and we won’t know, until Thursday.
What I can tell you is how Sanders plays. What he does well, and what he does poorly. What translates to the NFL, and what might limit him. And, of all those non-Titans teams that need a quarterback, I can tell you which are good fits for his game, and which wouldn’t mesh with his style.
Jump to a section:
What Sanders does best, and where he struggles
What he needs around him to excel
Ranking his best fits: Where could he thrive?
Sanders, the player
Sanders gets called a lot of things — clutch, playmaker, accurate, physically limited, risky — and each has a kernel of truth. But before anything else, he has tremendous feel for the quarterback position. His sense of where space is in the pocket, where it is downfield and how to manipulate the rest of the players on that field is highly impressive.
Take this example: a critical scramble and first-down throw against North Dakota State from Week 1 last season. In the pocket, Sanders is under quick pressure. His left tackle loses on the outside rush, and the looper from the right easily slips between the center and the left guard.
— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) April 18, 2025
Both pressures come from the left, but Sanders doesn’t escape to his right. That would be an understandable decision — right-handed quarterbacks prefer to run to their right, and that’s where the tacklers aren’t. But because the Bison rushers have momentum, and Sanders doesn’t, he’ll likely lose the footrace and get sacked.
Now, he doesn’t know that, but he looks like he knows that. He’s not actively processing it in the pocket. Instinctually, he knows if he waits a beat, then reverse pivots and bails out of the back of the pocket, he’ll slip both rushers and beat them to the corner.
That’s not even the magic. Once Sanders beats the pursuing defensive linemen, he does something scrambling quarterbacks rarely do: He stops moving. Then he raises his arms to a throwing position, despite every receiver being either covered or inaccessible. By doing so, he signals to his receivers to find space — and they cannot see what he can see. The attention he commands will pull down the first level of the defense, and a big void in the middle of the field will offer an easy completion.
The moment Shedeur Sanders stops his feet on a scramble and fires a completion.
Watch the clip again, seeing how both receivers on the hashes move in the same way, at the same time, as a response to Sanders’ throwing posture. Sanders knows he can get his receivers to move the way he wants them to if he behaves a certain way. So, at the cost of a thunderous hit, he stops his feet and takes another beat. He throws at the last possible second, just as his target is barely uncovering. Accurate ball. Twenty-five yards. First down.
Some of Sanders’ most impressive work comes in the scramble drill, when the routes are not defined and the coverage is inherently warped. On plays in which he was pressured and left the pocket — which should catch most of his scramble-drill plays — his 0.32 expected points added (EPA) per dropback ranked seventh in the nation.
Sanders’ 0.32 EPA was excellent despite that, in this sample of plays, he took three sacks (only three quarterbacks had more) and threw two interceptions (only 13 quarterbacks had more, including Ward). Again, in this sample, his time to throw was 5.44 seconds (third highest). His playmaking, creativity and aggression are not for minimizing risk or surviving for another down.
Because Sanders is not a remarkable athlete as a mover, nor as a thrower, his play style regularly writes checks his body can’t cash.
On this third-and-20 play against UCF in late September, Sanders is appropriately big-play hunting. The blitz comes off his left, and he leaks right. Wide receiver Travis Hunter (12) initially looks like he’s double-covered, but when the inside defender drives down on an underneath route, Hunter suddenly has leverage on his corner. Sanders has a small window — Hunter is running into the middle of the field, where more defenders lurk — so Sanders quickly fires a ball to the hashes.
— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) April 18, 2025
This pass is intercepted — it’s a nice play by the hole defender, who moved with Sanders’ eyes and body throughout the play. But even if that intercepting defender were not there, watch Hunter try to adjust to the ball.
Sanders tried to whip this ball into a tight window without an ideal throwing base, and here, his lack of torque is exposed. He regularly struggles to get his hips and trunk into his throws, instead over-indexing his arm in his mechanics to access power. This throw is not fast enough. Sanders’ motion is fast, but the ball dies in the air, pulling Hunter into the ground and giving the UCF defender an easy interception.
The instincts here are fine — this is the right throw to try and make. It’s simply a challenging throw, and he can’t achieve it.
Sanders’ lack of proper throwing mechanics and limited arm strength are evident in many plays, but it is especially glaring on vertical throws. He lofts throws when he should drive them, and those he lofts often fall short of their targets, forcing adjustments and bringing defenders back into the play. Against Arizona in mid-October, he has a sure touchdown if he just delivers a ball with the appropriate amount of air into a wide-open field. There isn’t a safety to worry about. Watch:
— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) April 18, 2025
Instead, the speedy LaJohntay Wester (10) is forced to throttle down and wait for the ball to arrive. The 46-yard completion that sets up first-and-goal shouldn’t feel like a negative play, but in the NFL, that corner won’t get beaten nearly as badly — and if he’s beaten, he’ll be much better in recovery, and make a play on this catch point.
Watch Sanders in the pocket. His back foot lands on the 39-yard line, his front foot on the 40. He gets a small lead step with his front foot, and his hips have some room to fire forward as they begin to turn. But his hips quickly run out of space, and because they cannot rotate any further, all of their power doesn’t reach Sanders’ arm. His trunk lurches up as his hips lock, and this throw is guided only by arm strength. The throw is slow, floating and short.
Sanders, to his credit, understands how to work around his limited scope of arm talent. Again, it’s just something his body seems to know how to do. Whenever he is challenged to make throws to the far sideline, he’ll often drift in the pocket slightly, shortening the distance on the throw by cheating with his dropback. For his evaluation, this is both a bad sign — because he lacks the arm strength — and a good sign — because he understands how to play within himself and account for the deficiency. Similarly, it’s both a good trick because it shortens the throw and a bad trick: Sanders’ dropback timing and location are often imprecise, which makes it harder for his offensive line to pass protect for him, since they don’t know exactly where he is in the pocket.
Go back to the North Dakota State game and watch Sanders drift to his left on this throw to the far sideline to get the ball to the comeback on time. Then, watch him take the same dropback looking for an out-cut in the red zone against BYU in the Alamo Bowl, but without the chip block from the tight end helping his left tackle. His dropback creates the angle for the pressure to arrive.
— Good Clips (@MeshSitWheel) April 18, 2025
His below-average arm trickles into everything Sanders does — what throws he can attempt, how he drops back — and informs much of his play. This is why he is in a tough battle to be the second quarterback drafted; Dart and Milroe and even Tyler Shough (Louisville) have superior arm talent. They throw with more velocity and can access more areas of the field. If they can take strides in the areas of their respective games that are limiting — processing and poise under pressure — they will have better NFL futures than Sanders. Their physical ceilings are higher.
But that’s the rub. Right now, Sanders is a better quarterback than Dart and Milroe. He sees the field better, adjusts to coverages and blitzes far better and isn’t just guiding a point-and-shoot offense with uncreative decisions and tentative play. He playmakes with the best of them. Shough’s quarterback skills are comparable to Sanders, but he is far older (Shough will be 26 in his rookie season, while Sanders just turned 23), far less productive over his career and has an injury history.
If you wanted to throw one of these quarterbacks into a run-of-the-mill pro-style NFL offense and win 10 games next season, your best bet would be Sanders. It’s when you prognosticate two or three years that things get murky.
What Sanders needs to excel
Sanders, like all rookie quarterbacks, needs an offense that caters to his skill set. It would be foolhardy to put him in an offense predicated on hitting vertical throws up the seam and outside the numbers consistently. It’s not his best throw, and he likely won’t improve at it. If Bruce Arians were still calling an NFL offense, I could promise you he would not draft Sanders.
Here’s what Sanders needs to succeed:
Creative, instinctive receivers. Sanders starred when throwing not just to Hunter but also Wester, in part because of how both adjusted their routes to coverages. Sanders often throws well in the red zone and on third down because those are the downs when receivers get isolated man coverage, and in the Colorado offense, those receivers get freedom to adjust. All offenses rely on dropback timing to some degree, but those that are rigidly married to precise, synchronized footwork from the dropback of the quarterback to the stem of the receiver will limit Sanders’ effect on the game.
This is one of the reasons Sanders is so beloved by his teammates, and especially his receivers. He gives them a chance at every ball (often because he underthrew it slightly), and he gives them the freedom to improvise their routes.
A heavy dropback game — not RPOs. By initially framing the give to the back, then popping into a throwing position, quarterbacks in run-pass option-heavy offenses are often in suboptimal throwing postures. RPO quarterbacks, accordingly, must have quick, light feet and throw well from adjusted bases. There are ways around this — the Eagles’ RPO game with Jalen Hurts is designed for him to throw on the move, as was the Colorado RPO game for Sanders — but in general, Sanders is far better on standard or play-action dropbacks that don’t stress his foot speed and flexibility as much.
Spread formations. Sanders is extremely good at identifying and attacking space. He knows how to take advantage of safety rotations and blitzes by quickly hitting receivers before the defensive geometry is set. His loftiest NFL comparison is Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, and though that comp is too rich for many reasons, it bears some truth in the way both can punish defenses when they try to play tricks.
The more spread an offensive formation, the harder it is for a defense to play tricks. Blitzing safeties and nickels have to creep in from greater distances; rotating safeties and dropping defensive linemen have to cover more ground. As the NFL hashes stress Sanders’ arm strength less, he’ll more easily access sideline throws as well. Spread ’em and shred ’em.
A really good set of tackles. Every rookie quarterback would benefit from a good offensive line. But Sanders loves to drift in the pocket, falling backward and to a side. He’s far from the first young quarterback to have this issue — Patrick Mahomes was a compulsive drifter in his first couple of years in the league — but it matters nonetheless. Drifting in the pocket challenges the tackles far more than the interior. As Sanders improves on that bad habit, a great tackle duo would ease his transition and cap what will be an inevitably big, but hopefully not too big, sack number.
Ranking Sanders’ best fits
After the Titans take Ward with the No. 1 pick, Sanders and his contemporaries face a draft rife with quarterback needs. No matter what the respective franchises say in the days leading up to the draft, the Browns, Steelers, Saints, and Giants all must select a quarterback in the first few rounds. Their rosters are in dire need.
Which team would be the best landing spot for Sanders? And which team might value him above the rest? Here’s how I rank Sanders’ landing spots:
Systematically, the Giants are almost certainly the best fit for Sanders’ play style. Head coach Brian Daboll and offensive coordinator Mike Kafka’s offense has relied on RPOs, but they’re not a cornerstone of the system. In general, they’ve had a gun- and spread-heavy approach that encourages quick targets to the underneath areas of the field — Sanders’ strengths.
Malik Nabers gives the Giants a receiver who bears some resemblance to Hunter. Nabers has a much larger catch radius than his length and size indicate, given his acrobatic skills in the air and great sense for the sideline. He can make multiple defenders miss in space, and he can turn the corner for additional yardage. He also loves to adjust his routes relative to coverage. There aren’t many receivers in the league whom Sanders would enjoy working with more than Nabers.
Andrew Thomas is a great left tackle, which is a bigger deal for Sanders’ blind side. It would be nice if the rest of the line and running game were a little better, to take some of the pressure off Sanders, but he seems uniquely well-suited to handle the expectations, so I’m not too worried about that. Any quarterback stepping into that media market with the responsibility of saving that franchise must have a tough constitution.
The Giants worked out Sanders last week, which raised some eyebrows. I strongly believe they won’t take him at No. 3. They have the No. 34 pick and an extra third-rounder with which to trade, however. Moving up into the end of Round 1 to secure Sanders would be a wise franchise-building move.
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As constructed, the Browns are not good for Sanders — or anyone. Their best receiver is Jerry Jeudy, who would pair nicely with Sanders for their improvisational skills and willingness to extend plays. But Jeudy is not a reliable pass catcher, especially with contact, and Sanders throws his receivers into lots of contact.
The Cleveland offensive line needs some youth, and tackle is the weakest point of the group. The running game was only good when Nick Chubb (who’s not on a roster) was healthy, and when Kevin Stefanski’s offensive system was dedicated to multi-tight end sets and under-center, wide zone action — not something that will be Sanders’ strength, as he can’t reliably punish defenses with deep throws off run fakes. Stefanski changed much of the offense to fit Deshaun Watson‘s style in recent years, and could do so again for Sanders, but the personnel is not good.
Of course, there is one thing the Browns likely will do between now and drafting Sanders that improves their fit with him greatly: Hunter at No. 2. Sanders and Hunter have a chemistry that is rare at the college level, even between two NFL-bound players. Having Hunter to bail him out from his long scrambles and 50-50 throws would immediately and dramatically ease Sanders’ onboarding ramp.
The Browns have the No. 33 pick and control of Day 2. If Sanders falls out of Day 1 (not likely), they could take him unopposed. Trading back up into the end of Round 1 and leveraging the additional third-rounder they carry into this draft feels like a safer play.
The Saints are awkwardly built. Their offensive line was constructed with a heavy run game, and accompanying play-action pass, in mind. Left tackle Taliese Fuaga and right tackle Trevor Penning are better run blockers than pass protectors, and receiver Rashid Shaheed excelled as a downfield target off deep play-action fakes.
New coach Kellen Moore has typically employed offenses with more spread formations, traditional dropbacks and half-field reads. Moore and offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier (who spent a long time working for college teams and has a deep collection of offensive styles) will adjust what they do to account for their personnel. Were they to draft Sanders, they likely would still run plenty of play-action, but more so to open intermediate throwing windows than downfield ones.
Chris Olave would give Sanders an excellent receiving option. Olave has great hands, runs tight routes and would benefit from Sanders’ skill set. However, Olave needs to stay healthy — he has suffered four concussions since entering the league in 2022. Sanders would fit the Saints, but the Saints might not be his best landing spot — especially if they have to rebuild under their new management and he is forced to endure a bad offensive roster for a few seasons.
If the Saints do not take Sanders at No. 9, it is unlikely they would get him at all. They have additional third- and fourth-round selections they could trade, but moving up from No. 40 to leapfrog both the Giants (34) and Browns (33) seems challenging. Dart and Milroe are both better team fits and likely will be targeted accordingly.
This would not be good for Sanders. Pittsburgh’s two big-name receivers are DK Metcalf and George Pickens. They are best on vertical balls, and though Sanders can throw Pickens plenty of 50-50 and back-shoulder opportunities, I do not see him pairing well with Metcalf. Metcalf needs to make catches on the run away from contact, and Sanders regularly throws his receiver into contact.
Additionally, Pickens and Metcalf have poor feel for the position. When the two improvise, they often are not on the same page as their respective quarterbacks, leading to incompletions and interceptions. Perhaps Sanders would better understand their play styles and preferences, but that’s challenging for a rookie quarterback.
Offensive coordinator Arthur Smith’s ideal offense involves plenty of deep play-action fakes, rifled throws to the intermediate middle of the field and having a quarterback with great timing in his feet. Those are not Sanders’ strengths. Pittsburgh, more than any other team on this list, could have Sanders ranked below Dart, Milroe and Shough.
play
Why Tannenbaum wants Steelers to pair Sanders with Rodgers
Mike Tannenbaum said the Steelers should draft Shedeur Sanders and sign Aaron Rodgers.
The wild cards
When the Falcons took Penix last year, all team-QB pairings in Round 1 became possible. The Raiders, Seahawks, Jets and Dolphins are all extremely unlikely to draft Sanders, but we can never say never.
Sanders would be an excellent Dolphin, as he plays with the sort of quick processing and feel for space that Tua Tagovailoa does. Coach Mike McDaniel’s scheme minimizes the need for accurate vertical throws (as evinced by Tagovailoa’s success), so Sanders would be protected there. Schematically, Miami is the best fit for Sanders among the dark horse teams, though I am 99.9% sure it is not drafting a quarterback at No. 13.
The team to watch is the Raiders. Geno Smith‘s recently signed contract extension is extremely front-loaded — after the 2025 season, he will hit their cap for only $26.5 million if he’s retained in 2026, and he would represent only $18.5 million in dead cap space if released. All of his 2027 money is unguaranteed. He got a two-year deal that can easily become a one-year deal if, say, a rookie quarterback outplays him in 2025. Las Vegas needs plenty of defensive help in this draft, but the offense is further along than people realize, and could support a young quarterback. Sanders’ existing relationship with Tom Brady, who is a minority owner of the team, should not be underestimated as a factor.
I do not think the Raiders would take Sanders at No. 6, and I do not think new coach Pete Carroll wants to take anyone who could unseat Smith. But if Sanders slides to the end of Round 1, don’t be surprised if they are one of the teams trying to trade up.
