NFL draft shocker: QB Sanders falls to day 3

Plenty of playmakers remain for teams to pick through Saturday in the NFL draft’s final four rounds, Shedeur Sanders stunningly among them.

Sanders is the biggest name still on the board more than 48 hours after he was widely expected to hear his name called, a spectacular slide for a quarterback who has gotten snubbed through 102 selections so far.

Even before plunging through Day 2 on Friday, the former Colorado star’s plight caught the attention of the White House.

In a post on his Truth Social platform Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump criticized teams for not selecting Sanders on Day 1 and suggested he should be picked immediately in Round 2.

NFL franchises, however, plucked 70 more players from the college ranks and left Sanders still waiting for his phone to ring.

Sanders and Miami’s Cam Ward were considered the top two passing prospects in this year’s draft with some analysts even rating Sanders higher than Ward, whom the Tennessee Titans made the top overall pick Thursday night.

Four other quarterbacks have leap-frogged Sanders. In a surprise in the first round, the Giants took Jaxson Dart of Ole Miss. And in Round 2, the Saints selected Louisville’s Tyler Shough, who began his college career at Oregon in 2018 and who will be 26 in September, and two more QBs went in the third round: Alabama’s Jalen Milroe to the Seahawks and Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel to the Browns.

One possible reason cited for Shedeur Sanders’ slide is his size — 6-foot-1, which is short for a QB by today’s standards — and yet, Gabriel is even shorter at 5-11 and 201 pounds, 15 pounds lighter than Sanders, who’s an accurate thrower and quick processor but who took a combined 94 sacks in his two seasons in Boulder.


(AP Photo Phelan M. Ebenhack)