Shedeur Sanders doesn’t really need much of an introduction. The son of Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, who also happens to coach him at Colorado and at Jackson State before that, Shedeur was a popular fixture in mock drafts throughout the 2023 college season before electing to return to the Buffaloes for one more year. He’s already prominent in most 2025 NFL Draft projections before the college season starts, too.
It’s easy to see why, based on his film. In watching the 6-foot-2, 215-pound Sanders at the helm of Colorado’s offense, the skillset and quarterback savvy shine. Even so, there’s still some real room for improvement from Sanders in the 2024 college season.
Probably the best thing going for Sanders is his throwing motion above the waist. He’s got an efficient, quick, consistent shoulder and arm motion that gets the ball out quickly and with impressive exit velocity when called upon to throw the fastball. He resets well after avoiding pressure and can deliver with the same upper-body motion after being moved.
Below the waist is a different discussion. While he’s not K.J. Jefferson from Arkansas with his flat-footed delivery, Sanders tends to not have bounce to his feet or always drive his hips into throws. It leads to a lot of throws that wind up being caught but aren’t quite as accurate or sharp as they could be. This is especially true on downfield throws, like this one against Stanford:
If Sanders steps into that throw and loads more into his lower body, that’s an easy touchdown. He had similar plays against Arizona State, USC and UCLA, throws that were completed but still left meat on the bone because of flawed lower-body mechanics or a slight delay in release.
Even with the footwork issues, Sanders still does a very impressive job of keeping the ball away from defenders and giving his receivers chances to make plays. Quick slants and RB flares are his specialty, and Sanders can rifle the ball in between defenders or layers of the defense very well. He also smartly keeps his receivers safe from big hits over the middle better than most collegiate QBs.
Sanders took an astronomical amount of sacks in 2023, the vast majority of which were the fault of terrible pass protection. His initial agility to escape pressure is not great, but if Sanders gets a count to see an escape route, he’s pretty effective at dodging. As a runner, Sanders resembles Joe Burrow of the Bengals–effectively fast and able to make subtle moves in the open field but not a real dynamic runner.
One of the reasons Sanders avoids giveaways so well is that he’s very good at reading the defense and properly assessing his options pre-snap. That’s a very valuable trait to translate into the NFL. Because his protection was so inept, his post-snap reading of the defense is difficult to truly grasp, but Sanders rarely missed seeing dropping LBs or robber safeties even under duress.
Hopefully the Colorado line will improve enough in 2024 to see more of Sanders winning from the pocket and not having to play artificially sped up. That can help his lower-body mechanics and also his timing.
Overall, Sanders is an impressive prospect with some rough spots to iron out in his final college season. It would not surprise me if Sanders winds up as a very high draft pick, though right now that’s more projective than reality.
