Shedeur Sanders selected by Browns in NFL Draft: 'Thankful for the opportunity for people to actually see the real me'

Shedeur Sanders finally found an NFL home.

After a winding evaluation process that cast him as one of the NFL draft's biggest mysteries — and following a huge slide that saw him bypassed by multiple QB-needy franchises — the Colorado Buffaloes quarterback was chosen in Saturday's fifth round by the Cleveland Browns. Taken No. 144 overall, the pick comes following a draft slide that stunned even some of his most critical talent evaluators in the league.

"I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity throughout everything," Sanders told reporters after being drafted. "I don't ever focus on a negative or even think about the negative because the positive happened so fast."

Sanders also answered questions about how he'll fit in with the Browns and approach the locker room.

"I feel like first thing getting in is showing respect to the vets. I'm getting ready to work and show the coaches, have them understand I'm ready to work, actually understand the real me," he said. "I'm truly thankful for the opportunity for people to actually see the real me and not be able to see stuff that could be true or not."

Sanders and those in attendance at his watch site erupted when his name was called, and then he jumped into a pool with his socks on in celebration:

"We live by our board," Browns general manager Andrew Berry told the media after the pick. "We felt like he was a good, solid prospect at the most important position. We felt it got to a point where he was probably mispriced relative to the draft. Really the acquisition cost was pretty light and it's a guy that we think can outproduce his draft stock. I wouldn't say it's any more than that.

"Obviously Shedeur has kind of grown up in the spotlight, but our expectation is for him to come in here and work and compete. Nothing's been promised, nothing will be given, so I may hesitate to characterize it as a blockbuster. That's not necessarily how we thought of the transaction, but we are excited."

Berry also called Sanders "highly accurate" and able to "play well from the pocket."

It also comes in the wake of a last-minute spate of controversy earlier this week, after NFL Network quoted multiple anonymous league sources who hammered Sanders with sharp criticism over his play and pre-draft interviews. While the critiques were not the first for Sanders in this process, the nature of some of the comments — including calling him “entitled” and “not very good” as a player — drew a spate of negative reactions inside and outside of league circles.

It's unlikely that report ultimately impacted Sanders' draft stock, but one former general manager who scouted Sanders in the 2023 and 2024 NFL Drafts remarked Saturday that his slide "felt personal." To that end, Sanders watched himself get bypassed multiple times by several franchises with varying levels of pressing QB needs, including the Browns, New York Giants, Las Vegas Raiders, New Orleans Saints and Pittsburgh Steelers. After the first three rounds, five quarterbacks were chosen in front of him: Miami's Cam Ward to the Tennessee Titans, Mississippi's Jaxson Dart to the Giants, Louisville's Tyler Shough to the Saints, Alabama's Jalen Milroe to the Seattle Seahawks and Oregon's Dillon Gabriel to the Browns.

That slide ended Saturday, with Sanders joining a Browns team depth chart that includes Gabriel, Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett.