DENVER — Welcome to the Deion Sanders Era, where Colorado is last in the Pac-12 but first in irony. Because to hear scouts tell it, the notion that Shilo Sanders needs cash is … probably costing him money.
“The bankruptcy and the fact that he has been playing under his father with the last two programs has not (helped),” Dave Syvertsen, longtime scout and senior draft analyst with the Ourlads.com scouting service, told me Monday. “He does not grade out athletically at an extremely high level. He’s going to be an older rookie.
“I would say that (Shilo) is going to fight a very uphill battle against the entire pre-draft process, and the off-field concerns can easily kind of push him off a lot of teams’ boards. Because maturity is a bigger deal to some teams than others.”
Long story short: The one-time No. 1 son of Coach Prime has got lawyers sifting through his Instagram posts and debt collectors circling. CU’s sixth-year safety last October declared bankruptcy, according to The Athletic. Why? To make a Texas court judgment of roughly $11 million in damages, related to a 2015 altercation at Coach Prime’s old prep school, go away.
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See what we mean about irony? This thing’s dripping with it. If you’re a Sanders, you were born flexing. You wake up flexing. A family brand steeped in swagger and rooted in being as flashy as possible, now needs to play down the jewelry, fancy watches and fast cars?
“I think building a culture is important in the NFL,” Syvertsen continued. “And if a guy that hasn’t done anything without his dad around comes in and thinks that he’s entitled to anything beyond what a normal rookie would be, that’s the quickest route to breaking up a culture-slash-locker room.”
Shilo’s a Day 3 pick, assuming he’s healthy. No, the breadwinner-to-be among CU’s Sanders brothers is Shedeur, who — again, health permitting — is earmarked to be no worse than the second quarterback taken in the 2025 NFL draft.
Although that last one depends on the team. It depends on the front office, the ownership — and their comfort level with hosting a circus.
Being Coach Prime’s kid is a double-edged sword, the kind of key that opens doors but locks others tight. I asked Syvertsen if all this off-field business with the Sanders family — the TV shows, the cameras, the concerts, the court filings — could spill over into Shedeur’s NFL prospects as well.
“I don’t want to use it against Shedeur, (but) I do think he’s going to have to know he’s going to have a bull’s-eye on him that, ‘Daddy got you everywhere you went in life,’ ” he replied.
“Now that you’re a professional, you’ve got to do this on your own, you’ll have the opportunity to do it — no more following Dad. You’re on your own once you’re in the league.”
But just as Deion doesn’t necessarily want his sons plying their trades in, say, Green Bay, there are several NFL franchises that don’t want The Prime Show any more than they’d want to see a camera crew from “Hard Knocks.” Teams that won’t enjoy coughing uncomfortably or looking the other way, as CU has often had to whenever anything awkward or questionable has come to light.
For Shedeur, it’s not a question of talent. Or tools. Or speed of the game. Or grown men on the other team trying to tear him apart.
Oh, no. Actually, it’s more about the grown men in the locker next to him.
“I loved what Tom Brady said to (Fox Sports’ Colin) Cowherd, (that) quarterbacks have to ‘endear’ themselves to their teammates,” Fox Sports analyst and former NFL QB Brock Huard said of Shedeur. “I’ll be curious if he can.”
Whether the inner thoughts of Harrison Butker or Colin Kaepernick make you more uncomfortable, know this: The color that matters most, that’s always mattered most, to the NFL is green. Money always talks and bull junk, to paraphrase Coach Prime, almost always walks.
Unless you walk the 40 in about 4.2 seconds flat.
“What (Shilo) is going through (off the field), and the fact he’s not a standout football player, could leave him being pushed off some boards,” Syvertsen said.
“It’s simply just another unknown fact — we don’t know how (either Shilo or Shedeur) handle humility at the end of the day. You can answer that question with a lot of prospects. But you can’t answer that question with them.”
Talk is cheap. Attorneys aren’t. And we’re all about to find out pretty soon, for better or worse, who Coach Prime’s true NFL friends really are.
