{"id":165814,"date":"2025-08-22T06:37:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T06:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/165814\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T06:37:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T06:37:11","slug":"nfl-teams-were-told-not-to-draft-shedeur-sanders-eric-dickerson-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/165814\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL teams were told not to draft Shedeur Sanders, Eric Dickerson says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Eric Dickerson made a controversial claim that the NFL wanted to \u201cmake an example\u201d of Shedeur Sanders and told<\/a> teams not to pick him in last April\u2019s draft.<\/p>\n

Dickerson alleged during an appearance on the \u201cRoggin and Rodney Show\u201d on AM 570 LA Sports<\/a> this week that he had heard about the messaging to teams through a \u201cvery good source\u201d that was connected to the NFL.<\/p>\n

Sanders was selected in the fifth round by the Browns after he had been projected to go in the first round in the months leading up to the draft, but questions surrounding the way he handled the draft process seemed to impact his draft stock.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shedeur Sanders watches third quarter action during the Browns\u2019 preseason road win over the Eagles on Aug. 16, 2025. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

The Pro Football Hall of Famer alleged it went beyond that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell you this much, what I heard from someone that\u2019s in the NFL that the NFL told [teams] don\u2019t draft him, do not draft him,\u201d Dickerson said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to make an example out of him. And this came from a very good source, a very good source.\u201d<\/p>\n

But apparently, Sanders had fallen much further than anticipated and some league officials called the Browns and \u201cforced\u201d them to take him with the 144th overall pick<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said that \u2013 I won\u2019t say who \u2013 somebody called the Cleveland Browns and said \u2018don\u2019t do that, draft him,\u2019\u201d Dickerson said. \u201cBecause they weren\u2019t going to draft him either\u2026 They were forced into drafting him because somebody made a call to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eric Dickerson attends NASCAR\u2019s Busch Light Clash at Los Angeles Coliseum on Feb. 6, 2022. Getty Images<\/p>\n

When asked what the point would have been \u2014 if it had been to make so he doesn\u2019t get picked \u2014 Dickerson said that the NFL was \u201cgoing to have him not get drafted to basically show you \u2018this is what happens when you do this.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But one NFL insider refuted what Dickerson had heard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sports Illustrated\u2019s Albert Breer told Dan Patrick on the \u201cDan Patrick Show<\/a>\u201d that he thought those \u201csorts of conspiracies are a little overdone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shedeur Sanders throws his first touchdown pass during the Browns\u2019 preseason-opening road win over the Panthers on Aug. 8, 2025. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there was any conspiracy here,\u201d he added. \u201cI think it\u2019s relatively simple what happened. I think the great majority of NFL teams did not view him as a first-round prospect contrary to what had been out there for the year previous.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then I think what happens is once you get past the first round, you look at the history over the years, not a lot of quarterbacks go in the second or third rounds\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe Flacco will be the starting quarterback for the Browns when the season starts in a few weeks, but Sanders is expected to play in the Browns\u2019 preseason game on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Eric Dickerson made a controversial claim that the NFL wanted to \u201cmake an example\u201d of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1544,95408,1406,1232,21577,19156,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-165814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-cleveland-browns","9":"tag-eric-dickerson","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-nfl-draft-2025","13":"tag-shedeur-sanders","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115071041212365666","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}