Shedeur Sanders 2025 NFL Draft Scouting Report: Will Colorado QB be First Off the Board?

Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders is one of the headliners of a controversial class of passers in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Alright, fine, let’s talk about the quarterback class.

It’s bad.

The two at the top, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Miami’s Cam Ward, are at opposite ends of what’s become a divisive spectrum. Ward is the upside play - an out-of-structure magician who just needs to learn to take the simple plays sometimes. Sanders is the floor play - a high-level pocket manager who will keep things on schedule.

Let’s focus on Sanders today.

Deion Sander’s youngest - and favorite - son was set to enroll at Florida Atlantic until his Hall of Fame dad took the Jackson State job prior to the 2021 season. Shedeur enrolled early enough to be with the Tigers for the 2020-21 spring season but was not eligible to play until the fall. He broke onto the scene as the 2021 Jerry Rice Award (best FCS freshman) winner and 2022 Deacon Jones Trophy (best HBCU player). Coach Prime’s success with Shedeur at the controls drew the attention of Colorado after the 2022 season and the family packed up and moved to Boulder, where the younger Sanders finished his career with Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award honors this past season.

The first thing that sticks out about Sanders’ tape is his pocket management. He feels backside pressure well, confidently stepping up and keeping his eyes downfield. Despite a subpar offensive line, Sanders frequently bought himself time and made an accurate throw without ever leaving the pocket. He does have the ability to scramble if needed, but I’d rate his mobility in the Joe Burrow and CJ Stroud tier. Sanders wants to throw it.

With good reason, too, because Sanders is a highly accurate passer. He sort of has to be, since he doesn’t have the elite arm strength of some of his future colleagues in the NFL. Even so, I was impressed by his ability to deliver a ball under duress to any level of the field and the way he retained that accuracy if he was able to set his feet outside the pocket. When he makes true throws on the run, however, the ball can drift on him, resulting in a few turnover-worthy plays thanks largely to Sanders’ lack of concern for throwing across his body over the middle.

Sanders’ deep ball is maybe his best throw, as he consistently finds his target’s leverage and places the ball in the bucket. His touch downfield is going to lead to a fair share of highlight plays, even if it’s not a 60 air yard throw.

As you might expect from the son of Deion Sanders, the spotlight doesn’t faze Shedeur. He’s incredibly poised for a college quarterback, rising to the occasion on gotta-have-it downs and late in games. Those situations are when he shows the most playmaking ability, an intangible trait characteristic of some of the league’s best quarterbacks.

Again, I don’t think Sanders is ever going to be regarded as a true dual-threat player or a particularly strong-armed passer, and that lack of elite playmaking traits likely puts a cap on his NFL ceiling. Sanders can extend plays, but sometimes he’s just a tick late to diagnose frontside pressure and escape laterally, so he takes some easily avoidable sacks. The Baylor tape is the best counter to this argument - in that game, Sanders made a number of plays with his legs to keep Colorado in the running.

People will point to the field curl pick 6 against Nebraska as proof that Sanders has a subpar arm, but I actually noticed something else. Sanders was late to throw that ball, a common theme in his early-season throws. Optimists can point to his need to adjust to new receivers like Vanderbilt transfer Will Sheppard - the target on that pick 6 - early in the year, but detractors can just as easily hand-wave the whole thing and say that Sanders is a long processor.

I think it probably lands somewhere closer to the former - later in the year, Sanders was much more decisive targeting players like Sheppard and Florida Atlantic transfer LaJohntay Wester.

There’s a lot of similarities in the way people have discussed Sanders and the way they discuss Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Smith and Sanders are pretty similar players, and if you don’t look closely, it’s easy to write them both off as average-at-best quarterbacks because of their lack of elite physical traits. But I’m admittedly (and correctly) a Smith enjoyer, and I like Sanders for many of the same reasons. There’s a lot of value in a quarterback who can simply operate an offense.

For a team like the Titans, whose head coach Brian Callahan got the job thanks to his work with Joe Burrow, the offense operator paragon, I think Sanders will be a very attractive option. Cleveland makes a lot of sense now that Kevin Stefanski will be calling plays again in 2025. General manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll are on the hot seat and could very well think taking a safer bet like Sanders will buy them some time, rather than risk the chance that someone like Ward turns out to be a complete disaster.

In short: it makes complete sense why those teams reportedly asked Sanders not to practice at the Shrine Bowl a few weeks ago. He fits what they want to do and probably aced his interviews, considering I’ve heard from multiple sources that he’s going to pass character checks with flying colors.

My personal scale puts Sanders in the back half of the first round, in large part because of his lack of league-altering upside.

Final Grade: 8.15 (First Round)