Colorado football: 3 NFL franchises that can ‘suck for Shedeur’

The idea of NFL franchises tanking by the 2023 season’s end in a “suck for Shedeur” bid to select the Colorado football quarterback in the 2024 NFL draft has been floated by Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz.

“Shedeur Sanders keeps doing this thing where all of a sudden NFL fans are going to be looking to, suck for Shedeur, just to bring him in to save their franchise,” Fitz said.

As Fitz notes, Sanders has become a legitimate NFL draft candidate with his play through the first two weeks of the Buffaloes’ 2023 season, and as others have pointed out, he’s a Heisman candidate as well. If he wins college football’s most prestigious award, Colorado will have had more than just a winning season in what is now the country’s best conference, the Pac-12.

He’ll be more than just NFL-ready. He’ll be someone truly viewed as a franchise-changer; especially if his father, Coach Prime, ever decided that he wanted to coach his youngest son at the NFL level after doing so in high school, at an HBCU, and at the Power Five level. What teams could be an option, though?

Here are 3 NFL teams that could ‘suck for Shedeur’ and make the Colorado football QB a franchise face

Arizona Cardinals

Without Kyler Murray for four weeks, the Arizona Cardinals are going to be shuffling different starters under center and likely doing a lot of losing on the way. Even with the QB in the lineup, not many are pegging the Cardinals to win much during the 2023 season.

After the Kliff Kingsbury era crashed and burned in its slow-burn 2022 demise, the Jonathan Gannon era looks transitional at best and more of the same from the last campaign at worst. A one-and-done season doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.

If that’s how things turn out for Arizona, who lost Week 1 in a surprisingly close game with Josh Dobbs under center, bringing on the Deion-Shedeur coach-QB combo seems plausible in the desert.

Denver Broncos

There’s very much a QB controversy in Denver, with the Broncos paying Russell Wilson a whole lot of nothing given the results: a franchise valley of a campaign in 2022 and an unnerving 0-1 start to the 2023 season in a 17-16 loss against the Las Vegas Raiders.

Sean Payton doesn’t have an immediate franchise-face-level replacement, with the big-armed but unproven Jarrett Stidham as Wilson’s primary backup. Certainly, Stidham isn’t someone the Broncos front office would make plans around in the offense.

Sanders would be the kind of player they would, though. The Boulder-Denver connection makes this a sensible move on many levels. It’d also be a great thing for Coach Prime’s prospects of staying in the state long-term.

New York Giants

The most glamorous option in the bunch for Sanders, the New York Giants would have their first true franchise quarterback since Eli Manning, a fellow famous family member of an NFL legend. Daniel Jones is merely paid like one.

Jones’ contract will be a problem for the Giants moving forward. He showed enough in 2022 to give New York the impression he can be a franchise face, but now that he’s due big money if he’s merely good enough not to have his contract cut from the books, it’s now or never. The Dallas Cowboys’ 40-0 Week 1 destruction makes the latter a lean for many.

If things don’t work out for Jones and head coach Brian Daboll, Deion and Shedeur bringing the Colorado football coach-QB connection to the Big Apple would bring “Prime Time” to a different stratosphere.