Shedeur Sanders intentionally tanked interviews with certain NFL teams before NFL Draft slide, per report

Billy Heyen

Shedeur Sanders intentionally tanked interviews with certain NFL teams before NFL Draft slide, per report image

There was a lot of chatter during Shedeur Sanders' NFL Draft free fall about his interviews.

Speculation ran rampant that Sanders had interviewed poorly with teams in the pre-draft process, and that that's part of why he didn't go until the fifth round to the Browns.

CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones shared more information recently about what happened with Sanders in interviews.

Turns out, Sanders may have just been a selective interviewer.

“At some of those (NFL Combine) meetings with certain teams that maybe Shedeur Sanders didn’t really want to go to… I was told that he more or less sandbagged in those interviews,” Jones said. “I don’t know if he didn’t take them seriously, what it was, but he did not give it his all in some of those interviews.”

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Jones added that Sanders didn't stand out in a major way at his pro day. Teams also didn't love that he already had his jersey retired at Colorado.

This all possibly contributed to the Pittsburgh Steelers passing on Sanders repeatedly in the draft despite the most heavy linkings in the final few days leading up to the draft pointing to Pittsburgh.

“This is clearly a way for the NFL and its teams to let him and anyone else after him know: you can’t comport yourself in this way moving forward,” Jones said.

Sanders is now in a crowded QB room with fellow rookie Dillon Gabriel and veterans Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett.

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None of this has gone how Sanders would've drawn it up, and now he just has to make the most of it.

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Billy Heyen

Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who has written about many sports and fantasy sports for The Sporting News. Sports reporting work has also appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle