College coaches react to Browns' Shedeur Sanders falling to fifth round of 2025 NFL Draft

Arguably the most-discussed football-related story of the spring continues to involve Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders falling to the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft until the Cleveland Browns traded up to take him at pick No. 144.

For a piece produced by Adam Rittenberg of ESPN that was published on Tuesday, multiple college coaches reacted to one of the more surprising draft slides in NFL history. 

"He's got a bigger, stronger body, he does a great job of extending things, got the crap beat out of him with a subpar [offensive] line," one unnamed Big 12 coach said about Sanders. "But how many times did he make a rhythm-and-timing throw in a window? It's either quick stuff out to the boundary or extended plays that he could get the ball deep. That would have been my question: Is he completely there enough to be a first-round pick? That doesn't mean there aren't reasons he shouldn't have gone second through fourth."

Even after it was initially reported in March that Sanders allegedly "hit the wrong notes" in interviews with teams during the scouting combine, many members of the football community assumed he'd be the second quarterback selected during this year's draft after the Tennessee Titans grabbed Miami's Cam Ward with the top pick. Instead, every team passed on Sanders a handful of times. 

Cleveland drafted Oregon's Dillon Gabriel in the third round before general manager Andrew Berry decided that taking a flier on Sanders in the fifth round was worth it for a franchise that hasn't had a long-term QB1 since it returned to the NFL in 1999. It's widely thought that Sanders' handling of the predraft process sunk his stock before April 24 arrived. 

"People have taken a lot worse," one SEC defensive assistant said about teams reportedly removing Sanders from their draft boards because of supposed character concerns. Meanwhile, a Big 12 coach insisted he thought Sanders was the second-best quarterback in this year's class behind only Ward. 

"I was shocked," that Big 12 coach added about Sanders falling to the fifth round. 

A Big 12 coach and a Group of 5 coach both suggested that teams that didn't view Sanders "as a clear-cut starter" wanted to avoid having to deal with potential distractions and the "noise" caused by having such a big-name backup on the roster. Unlike other clubs, however, the Browns will begin springtime workouts without an established starter atop the depth chart. 

Gabriel and Sanders are joining a quarterback room that was already occupied by veteran Joe Flacco and 2022 first-round choice Kenny Pickett. As of Tuesday morning, FanDuel Sportsbook listed Flacco as the betting favorite at +116 odds to be Cleveland's Week 1 starter.

"I thought he'd fall but not like this," one defensive coordinator who faced Sanders in college said about the polarizing prospect being available for Cleveland at choice No. 144. Perhaps Sanders will become an all-time draft steal for a franchise that could use some good luck regarding the quarterback position heading into the second half of the 2020s.