On Thursday, April 24, Cam Ward, a zero-star recruit who came out of high school with one scholarship offer, was selected by the Tennessee Titans as the first overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. This made Ward the first zero-star recruit to be drafted no. 1 overall since the start of the modern recruiting era in 2000.
But this is not the story anyone was talking about on Draft Day—partially because his selection was essentially a foregone conclusion, but mostly because a far more pressing story demanded people’s attention: the status of Shedeur Sanders’ draft stock.
Sanders, a quarterback out of University of Colorado Boulder—where he was famously head coached by his Hall of Fame cornerback father Deion—was widely projected to be one of the first quarterbacks taken in the draft. If he didn’t get picked in the first round, it was expected he’d be chosen by the end of the second. But the first two rounds came and went, and Sanders still had not been drafted, much to the shock and confusion of league insiders and fans alike.
Eventually, the Cleveland Browns traded their 166th and 192nd picks to the Seattle Seahawks to select Sanders in the fifth round with the 144th overall pick. Interestingly, the Browns had already selected a quarterback in the third round when they took Dillon Gabriel from University of Oregon, meaning the Browns QB room is currently composed of Deshaun Watson, Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, in addition to their two 2025 Draft picks. It’s difficult to overstate how odd of a situation Sanders is entering.
Since Sanders was drafted, commentators, reporters, and opinionated fans on social media have offered every justification under the sun for his draft slide, including questions about his skill level (he had the most QB faulted pressures and sacks of 2024), speculation of discontent amongst owners and general managers about his father’s potential involvement in his career (Deion publicly stated he would not allow his son to be drafted to certain teams), and allegations of unprofessional behavior during pre-draft interviews.
No single reason can explain exactly why Sanders’ draft stock plummeted the way it did, and it’s reductive and pointless to try to find one. That being said, it’s impossible to not notice the one factor that many professional commentators and analysts seem hesitant to offer an opinion on, which is Sanders’ race.
To the uninformed observer, Sanders’ race may not seem relevant to this situation, especially given that this year’s number one draft pick is also a Black quarterback. But there’s a lot more to it than that.
On Draft Day, a post on X went viral about Cam Ward’s appearance at the event: “No flashy jewelry. No flashy suit. No flashy girlfriend hogging the attention. Just a regular suit, thin chain, alma mater pin, and his parents by his side. Yeah he’s playing 20 years of pro bowl football.”
As many replies to the post pointed out, this commentary is a pretty obvious racial dog whistle. Tons of top players in the NFL use fashion and jewelry as a form of self-expression (for example, famously white Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow). But the behavior garners a lot more scrutiny amongst Black players, who often take flak for being ostentatious, materialistic, and image-obsessed. This criticism is heightened even more for Black quarterbacks, who already play the most hyper-scrutinized position on the field, and are subject to endless debates about their leadership, play styles, and general existences.
The fact that Ward did not follow these trends and refused to be flashy means he’s a good quarterback, who doesn’t want to take up too much space or cause any distractions and is instead focused strictly on the game. He’s being praised for not using visual aesthetics negatively associated with Blackness in the NFL, thereby signifying to some people on X that he’s going to be the right type of Black quarterback.
Without expressly saying it, the post paints Ward in direct opposition to Sanders, who is rarely photographed without his trademark chains and has been unafraid to embrace the media coverage that comes with having such an iconic and public-facing father. Thus, according to the logic of this post, these qualities of Sanders means he does not have what it takes for a multi-decade NFL career.
The irony of the false dichotomy, though not expressly stated, of Ward as a good Black quarterback and Sanders as a bad one is that the two are friendly with one another.
In his Titans introductory press conference, Ward defended Sanders:
“I’ve created a special relationship with him, especially me first getting to know him about five years ago when I started working with him when I was at [University of the Incarnate Word],” Ward said. “But it did surprise me, because he’s a good quarterback. He doesn’t get a lot of the credit he deserves. Especially the plays that he made at Colorado; a lot of quarterbacks in the country aren’t making those plays.”
There’s no doubt that every move either player makes during their career will be held under a microscope, with Sanders particularly lined up to be NFL commentators’ new favorite punching bag. But it’s obvious neither of them have any intention of being confined by expectations, stereotypes, and false dichotomies, and haters and fans alike will just have to wait to see how their first seasons unfold.
Erin Byerly can be reached at ebyerly@wesleyan.edu.
Leave a Reply