Shedeur Sanders was not selected by a team at the end of the third round of the NFL draft on Friday. The Colorado quarterback and son of football legend Deion Sanders was projected to go as high as No. 3 overall to the New York Giants but remains waiting after 102 picks.
Sanders could be selected in Rounds 4-7 on Saturday.
Five quarterbacks — Miami's Cam Ward, Ole Miss' Jaxson Dart, Louisville's Tyler Shough, Alabama's Jalen Milroe and Oregon's Dillon Gabriel — went ahead of Sanders.
Sanders began his collegiate career at Jackson State in 2021 when his father was the head coach. Both left for Colorado after the 2022 season, and Shedeur Sanders spent his final two years in college with the Buffaloes.
In his senior season, Sanders won Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year, completing 74.0% of his passes, with 37 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He also threw 4,134 yards.
Sanders was a key figure in Colorado’s turnaround as a football program. The school won only one game the season before his arrival. In 2024, the Buffaloes won nine games for the first time since 2016.
In the lead up to the draft, Sanders was the target of several scouts and coaches, with his character off the field often being drawn into question.
Sanders told NBC News he wasn't worried about the negativity.
“I truly don’t have any space for negativity, so it doesn’t play a factor in my life at all,” Sanders said in April about the anonymous comments. “I understand the easiest thing in the world to do is to be negative instead of positive. I truly don’t care what people have to say.”
