OutKick's Amber Harding put Deion Sanders' comments about his son, Shedeur, not wanting to go to a cold-weather city into perfect perspective: Tom Brady, Pat Mahomes, and Aaron Rodgers never refused to go to a cold-weather city and have become the top quarterbacks of their generation; and arguably, for all three, of all-time.
"Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers… None of them were too good to play in cold weather cities," Harding prefaced before saying, "But Shedeur surely deserves better!"
While Harding would go on to explain that it wasn't to take anything away from Shedeur's brilliance on the field, her poignancy did get the point across loud and clear. The greats throughout history have accepted their draft fate and have gone to cold-weather cities and won. Mahomes went from Texas Tech to Kansas City while Rodgers went from Cal to Green Bay. To add to that, Peyton Manning went from Tennessee to Indianapolis, and Eli Manning -- the latter of whom Coach Prime claimed Shedeur, Shilo, and Travis Hunter were all going to emulate at the 2025 draft -- went to New York from Ole Miss.
"All this is subjective because I know where I kind of want them to go," Sanders said on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast (58:55 mark) (h/t Bleacher Report). "And let's not forget Shilo (Sanders). But I know where I want them to go. There's certain cities where it ain't going to happen. ...It's going to be an Eli ."
Deion Sanders running risk of stepping on Shedeur Sanders' toes before 2025 NFL draft
On one hand, you can credit Coach Prime for being so forthright about what he wants for his son in 2025 and beyond during his pro career. On the other hand, this exact conversation couldn't be done in private with NFL general managers?
Shedeur is a top-tier QB talent, but his father is already starting to be, to many, a distraction. And the "Grown QB" still has another season left in Boulder to finish what he started.
I suppose NFL teams knew what they were getting with Shedeur anyway, but this all comes off as excessively brash and gives off "control freak" vibes when it was never necessary for these demands to be made publicly over a year before he'd even be drafted.