If you thought the current state of professional sports in America couldn’t get any dumber and more classless, think again.
Over the weekend, members of America’s sports media cried in unhinged indignation about the late selection of former Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders in this year’s NFL draft. Sanders, the son of the Buffaloes’ head coach and former NFL player Deion Sanders, was expected by some to be a first-round pick but was not chosen until the fifth round (No. 144th overall) by the Cleveland Browns.
Fellow college quarterbacks Cam Ward (Miami, No. 1 pick), Jaxson Dart (Ole Miss, No. 25 pick), Tyler Shough (Louisville, No. 40 pick), and several others were selected prior to Sanders.
Without missing a beat, many sports media personalities — who are often as left-wing as their political media counterparts — deduced the real reason why Sanders was selected so late in the days-long draft: racism.
You read that correctly. In a league predominantly comprised of black athletes getting paid millions of dollars to play a game, the geniuses fashioning themselves as “expert” sports analysts want you to believe the color of Sanders’ skin determined his draft position.
In a video reacting to Sanders’ late-round selection, aging man-child and commentator Skip Bayless suggested that the collective decision by so many teams to pass on the former Buffaloes quarterback early in the draft “smells of racist undertones; of too many white people in charge in this league who just roll their eyes at both father and son at Colorado.”
“So, if it’s not football, what is it? Are there racial undertones here? Racist undertones? You be the judge … Racism is so hard to sort of grasp and prove, but it just stinks, it smells of racist undertones,” Bayless said.
As the second and third rounds of the draft were coming to a close Friday night, at which point Sanders had not been selected, ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith went as far as to compare Sanders’ situation to that of Colin Kaepernick‘s — the disgraced former San Francisco 49ers quarterback known for kneeling during the National Anthem and smearing police officers.
“This is a damn disgrace. How in the hell is @Shedeur not off the board, not drafted yet. Y’all still think this doesn’t have anything to do with teams hatin on @DeionSanders. This kid is a first rounder,” wrote Smith, referencing his belief that NFL teams didn’t want to “deal with” Deion’s overbearing presence. “In a different way, this is Kaepernick all over again…..being kept out. A damn disgrace. I don’t care what anyone says!”
Smith later shared an alleged message from a contact, who supposedly claimed, “This feels like Kaepernick-level collusion.” Smith added, “All the hard work the NFL League Office puts in to eradicate these kinds of perceptions, only to turn around and watch as the OWNERS look like they’re colluding, messing up everything.”
But it wasn’t only the sports bros weighing in on the situation.
After suffering a humiliating primary defeat last year, former “Squad” member and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., decided to throw his irrelevant opinion into the mix, implying Sanders wasn’t selected early in the draft because he doesn’t want to “submit to y’all white sh-t.”
“I take it personal when I see someone like Shedeur Sanders, you know, because he talks a certain way and ’cause he wears gold chains, and his pops is Deion, and he don’t want to submit to y’all white sh-t … he’s gonna slip in the draft,” Bowman said. “And you’re telling me it’s based on the evaluation, like you didn’t watch the games and watch him play and see him play. It’s crazy.”
What’s truly “crazy,” however, is automatically placing nonexistent “racism” as the source of Sanders’ fifth-round selection.
For one, most of the first-round picks in this year’s draft (and many picks preceding Sanders in the rounds thereafter) are black. The idea that NFL coaches and general managers (including black head coaches like the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mike Tomlin) passed over Sanders exclusively — or even in part — because of his race while simultaneously drafting other black players is conspiratorial nonsense.
Browns General Manager Andrew Berry — who ultimately selected Sanders — is black. Do deluded commentators like Bayless believe that Berry’s decision to draft former Oregon Ducks quarterback Dillon Gabriel two rounds before choosing Sanders had “racist undertones”? (Don’t expect them to answer that question.)
Secondly, the media-manufactured narrative that Sanders possessed the caliber of a first-round pick was completely overblown.
Sanders didn’t even crack the top 10 in quarterback ratings for the 2024 college football season. He finished 16th behind quarterbacks like Ward, Gabriel, and Dart — all of whom were drafted before him.
Colorado also didn’t play at the same high level of competition as schools like Oregon (Gabriel) and Ole Miss (Dart) did during the 2024 season.
Lastly, who could ignore the myriad reports of Sanders’ alleged unprofessional conduct while interviewing with NFL teams prior to the draft? One NFL assistant coach allegedly said of his interaction with Sanders: “The worst formal interview I’ve ever been in in my life. He’s so entitled. He takes unnecessary sacks. He never plays on time. He has horrible body language. He blames teammates … But the biggest thing is, he’s not that good.”
So, was Sanders’ slightly-above-average talent or attitude to blame for his late draft selection? Or maybe a combination of both?
Whatever the real reason, the knee-jerk (yet predictable) reaction by sports media leftists to racialize the entire controversy is disgraceful. If anything, it’s just another example showcasing what professional sports have become — a shallow, identity-obsessed venue that’s sacrificed character and camaraderie in favor of unconstrained narcissism and outrage culture.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
