The 2024 NFL Draft is loaded with quarterback talent, but one signal-caller not on this 12 months’s group thinks he’s higher than all of them.
USC’s Caleb Williams and North Carolina’s Drake Maye are expected to go throughout the top-five picks, but Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders thinks if he had declared for this 12 months’s draft, he may very well be taken before them.
Speaking with Sports Illustrated in Las Vegas ahead of Super Bowl 2024, Sanders, who previously has made clear he’s staying at Colorado together with his dad Deion for one more 12 months, was asked point blank about where he would go if he was taken on this 12 months’s draft.
While the Buffaloes star said he has respect for them, he thinks he has more talent than this 12 months’s group, which incorporates 2022’s Heisman winner (Williams) and ACC Player of the 12 months (Maye).
Together with those two quarterbacks, many mock drafts predict LSU’s Jayden Daniels and Oregon’s Bo Nix will probably be chosen throughout the first 15 picks.
“I’m biased, but I don’t see a quarterback that’s higher than me,” Sanders told SI on Friday. “I don’t see a quarterback that went through as much adversity as me, that had 4 [offensive coordinators] in 4 years.
“Coming from an HBCU, coming to a Power Five [school], having real pressure on me. A number of people don’t understand, that’s rather a lot more adversity than you think that just even being the son of Deion Sanders.”
Sanders and his dad made a splash early in Buffalo’s 2023 season because the team went 3-0 before faltering down the stretch and ending at 4-8.
But Sanders excelled despite some spotty offensive line play, racking up school-record 3, 230 passing yards and 27 touchdowns while completing 69.3 percent of his passes.
Next season, he’ll have former Giants head coach Pat Shurmur on the play-calling duties because the full-time offensive coordinator to begin the 12 months, together with five-star offensive lineman Jordan Seaton within the fold.
In September, Coach Prime told Bleacher Report that Shedeur didn’t need to be a “backseat rider” to Williams or anyone, for that matter.
With one other 12 months to construct his draft case, Sanders could have the possibility to get top billing and be in the motive force’s seat in 2025.