Shedeur Sanders Historic NFL Draft Drama Ignites Heated Racial Debates

Shedeur Sanders leaned on prayer and faith during this historic NFL Draft slide.

But some of his supporters leaned into something else.

ESPN star host Stephen A. Smith helped to stir, whether intentionally or not, a heated debate about the role of race in Sanders’ draft drama.

Smith revealed a text message from an associate who compared the situation to Colin Kaepernick being out of the NFL since 2016 after his infamous kneels during the national anthem, in an X post. And Smith agreed with the comparison.

“‘This is a bad look for the NFL. This feels like Kaepernick-level collusion,'” Smith said the text read, adding that the situation goes beyond “talent evaluation.”

“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. {snip}”

In an earlier post, Smith wrote, “In a different way, this is Kaepernick all over again.”

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Earlier on Friday, before Sanders even fell past the second and third rounds, former Democrat congressman Jamaal Bowman more bluntly suggest he has fallen because “America continues to fear strong Black men.”

“The NFL doesn’t like [Shedeur] Sanders, because he wears gold chains and talks like a rapper. {snip}” Bowman wrote on X.

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ESPN radio host Peter Rosenberg posted a long-ranging thread on X, arguing that race has been a factor in Sanders’ draft slide.

“Some (white) people may not understand why race is becoming a conversation around Shedeur. It may or may not have anything to do with what’s going on here but the relationship between America and ‘brash’ Black athletes has a deep history. White America is historically angered by and scared of men like Shedeur Sanders. So whether that’s what’s happening here or not — that history and feeling cannot go away,” Rosenberg wrote.

Meanwhile, the TNT Sports journalist Stan Becton went so far as to suggest the New York Giants passed over Sanders for Jaxson Dart because they “don’t like” Black quarterbacks.

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