Football <\/p>\n
Now that the dust is settling on the stunning Shedeur Sanders draft-weekend rollercoaster, more specific details are emerging about the attitude more than a few teams had about him.<\/p>\n
Via Jaclyn Hendricks of the New York Post<\/i>, former NFL quarterback and long-time NFL analyst Boomer Esiason addressed the issue during his morning show on WFAN.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you listen to this kid talk, right prior or at the Combine, about how if you want a new culture in your locker room, I\u2019m the guy to do that, I can turn it around, he\u2019s very high on himself, and I think he\u2019s very off-putting to many, many coaches and general managers in the league,\u201d Esiason said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m telling you right now, and I know this after talking to three different personnel people in the NFL this weekend, they didn\u2019t even have him on their board. They took him off, and they took him off because the owner said, \u2018Take him off, I don\u2019t want that guy<\/a><\/span>. I don\u2019t want this . . . entitled person on our team,\u2019 and I don\u2019t blame them.\u201d<\/p>\n And there\u2019s the difference between granting anonymity to sources for opinions and granting anonymity for facts. Giving an unnamed source the ability to say whatever they want to say, however generally and negatively they want to say it, is no different than the venom spewed by Johnny5464369839 on Twitter. And media outlets that amplify those opinions are no different from the social-media sites that revel in allowing people to say whatever they want to say without anyone knowing who they are.<\/p>\n Here, Esiason was specific. Multiple owners didn\u2019t want Sanders on the board.<\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s impossible to prove that it\u2019s accurate, unless and until multiple owners will come out and say, on the record, that they didn\u2019t want Sanders. But something caused him to free fall to a spot that lands well below his objective talent.<\/p>\n The core problem seems to be that Shedeur didn\u2019t take the pre-draft process seriously. His dad, Deion, may have done the same thing, as evidenced by his refusal to take the Giants\u2019 lengthy test. He told them he won\u2019t be on the board when they draft<\/a><\/span> \u2014 and he was right.<\/p>\n But Deion\u2019s talent was objectively off the charts. Shedeur didn\u2019t have that same level of skill. For those who aren\u2019t no-brainer, top-of-the-class prospects, failing to play the pre-draft game can have consequences. For Shedeur, it did.<\/p>\n He was asked over the weekend by reporters if he regrets anything from the pre-draft process.<\/p>\n \u201cDo I have any regrets?\u201d Shedeur said. \u201cI feel like in life it\u2019s always a way I can improve. So it\u2019s always in different areas I\u2019m able to improve. And some things that I could have done at the time that seemed right at the time I could have went about in a different way and that was like more during the season and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Moving forward, the question is whether he takes what happened to heart and adjusts accordingly, or whether he becomes resentful, with his anger hardening into a belief that he was disrespected repeatedly by everyone \u2014 including the team that passed on him over and over before eventually throwing him a lifeline.<\/p>\n It\u2019s up to him. He\u2019ll be more likely to prove those who skipped over him wrong if he realizes his own responsibility for the outcome and resolves to address those issues.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n