Ask five different talent evaluators about Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders and you’ll likely get five different opinions. At one point in the draft process, he was talked about as a lock for the top five. Now, he may slip all the way into the 20s. No wonder the Pittsburgh Steelers brought him in for a pre-draft visit. He may just fall into their laps.
However, as with all things, there are reasons that Sanders’ draft stock is falling. Should the Steelers be concerned about why he could suddenly be in their range? New Mexico State offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach David Yost thinks teams should certainly take a shot on Sanders. He’s impressed with how Sanders handled pressure behind a rough offensive line at Colorado.
“I’ve been amazed at how accurate he is with how much duress he was under,” Yost said in an interview with Go Long with Tyler Dunne. “Which I think that’s an undervalued thing…I think watching what he’s had to do as far as getting himself out of trouble and still making plays over and over and over again, I think a lot of that will carry over into the NFL because that’s what you are.”
Too often, we see young quarterbacks break under the pass rush NFL defenses throw at them, whether that’s just pressure with a front four or blitzing the heck out of them. Rookie quarterbacks coming from big-time programs might have an elite college offensive line, so they’ve never faced heavy, sustained pass rushes. That all changes once they’re drafted by an NFL team.
But Shedeur Sanders isn’t from a big-time college blue blood. He started at Jackson State and then transferred to Colorado. He didn’t have an elite offensive line in front of him. That’s part of why he took so many sacks. Despite that, Yost sees that Sanders still showed an ability to stand in the pocket and make plays. He also saw Sanders pick up the slack at points for his offensive line.
“When you watch Shedeur Sanders, I think he fixes a lot of things you have to do as a quarterback,” Yost said. “I tell the quarterbacks all the time, ‘Your job is to fix the mistakes of the guys around you.’ Because guess what? The right guard is going to get beat sometimes. Just watching what Shedeur was able to do at Colorado at a really high level — over and over and over again, when everybody knew they were throwing the ball almost every snap. I mean, you’d watch that game and he found ways to make play after play after play to keep ’em in games and then win games. So I’ve been way impressed by him, and I think a lot of what he does will show up in the NFL. If I didn’t have a quarterback, I would draft Shedeur Sanders.”
Well, the Steelers certainly don’t have a franchise quarterback. Right now, all they have are Mason Rudolph and Skylar Thompson. Will Aaron Rodgers sign with the Steelers or not? Colin Cowherd certainly thinks he shouldn’t, and he’ll be happy to tell you all about that.
And I think Shedeur Sanders certainly fits the bill for what the Steelers want to do on offense. When I analyzed six college quarterbacks the Steelers have been linked to, I wanted to see how they fared throwing the ball deep, throwing interceptions, and how they performed using play-action. Sanders was consistently one of the best of the group across all categories.
Deep-ball completion percentage and adjusted-completion percentage? Top 20 in the country. Play-action completion percentage? Seventh in the nation. He threw an interception on 1.7 percent of his passes, second-best among the six quarterbacks. And Pro Football Focus thinks he had a turnover-worthy play on only 1.1 percent of his passing attempts, best of the group.
Sanders certainly seems to check a lot of the boxes for the Steelers. And FOX Sports NFL insider Jordan Schultz is hearing that Sanders is what Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith wants out of a quarterback.
Will the Steelers draft Shedeur Sanders in little over a week? No one knows. But they are certainly doing their homework. And based on David Yost’s thoughts, he would certainly take Shedeur Sanders if he were in general manager Omar Khan’s shoes. And Sanders may help mitigate some of the questions about the Steelers’ offensive line, too. But Steelers Depot’s Alex Kozora is not sold on Sanders.
Hence why Shedeur Sanders’ draft stock is all over the place right now.
