Eric Dickerson believes it is not a coincidence that Shedeur Sanders dropped to the fifth round of the NFL Draft in April. In fact, he says there was a coordinated effort to keep Sanders from being drafted.
Dickerson, who is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, joined “Roggin and Rodney” for an interview on AM 570 in Los Angeles, Calif., on Wednesday. During that interview, Dickerson claimed that the NFL told teams not to draft Sanders.
“What I heard from someone that’s in the NFL … the NFL told others ‘Don’t draft him. Do not draft him; we’re going to make an example out of him.’ This came from a very good source. A very good source. And he said that — I won’t say who — somebody called the Cleveland Browns and said ‘Don’t do that,’” Dickerson said.
“They weren’t going to draft him either. They were forced into drafting him because somebody made a call. This is an NFL-side source for sure,” Dickerson added.
“One thing about it is, I’ll just say it, they don’t like when guys — especially black players — that’s mostly us with the brand. Some guys are flashy. They don’t like that. This kid had already made $17 million from a card deal he signed. And another 14 (million) I think from some shoe deal. He was good money-wise, but I know he wants to play in the National Football League.”
Dickerson contends that the NFL was going to have Sanders go completely undrafted and become a free agent.
“He was not going to get drafted to basically show ‘this is what happens when you do this.’ The NFL has all kinds of power … they were not going to draft him. And when I say it came from a good source, it came from a very very good source.”
What was the NFL trying to make an example out of Sanders for? To deter against athletes having brands in college? Or maybe they didn’t like the way Shedeur’s father Deion openly talked about trying to manipulate the draft and have his son refuse to play for certain teams. Maybe that’s the message the league was trying to send.
Dickerson isn’t the first person to say the NFL was trying to blackball Sanders, who is entering his rookie season with the Cleveland Browns.
Eric Dickerson went on @RogginAndRodney and told the world the Sky is Blue!
— Dubbs Lane (@Dubbslane) August 21, 2025
Translation? The NFL is just a billion-dollar cosplay where owners live out their modern-day fantasies of legally owning people. pic.twitter.com/pPy8bkBy1E
