👀Mel Kiper reacts to Shedeur Sanders’ 1st NFL start! | First Draft🏈

👀Mel Kiper reacts to Shedeur Sanders’ 1st NFL start! | First Draft🏈

We had the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Shador Sanders finally got to start an NFL game. The entire world wants to know what Mel Kyper thought. It is no secret, Mel. You were a believer in Shadore. You never stopped feeling that way. Now he is 1 and0. The first Cleveland Browns quarterback to start 1 and 0 in this millennium. What was your reaction first and foremost, Mel, to Shadore start? happy for him for the Cleveland Browns and obviously the the defense. Miles Garrett’s ready to set the NFL record. They couldn’t block him. There’s three things you talk about. You know, in baseball, what do they say at Bulldorm? You remember Grinny? What do you you throw the ball? Yeah. Hit the ball. You catch the ball and all that. And in football, it’s really very simple, right? It’s BTC, blocking, tackling, and concentration. That’s what I say. Blocking, tackling, and concentration. And and to me, when you think about this game, they couldn’t block him. You can’t beat him if you can’t block him. But in terms of Shadore, the operations for a young quarterback, when you see quarterbacks running up clapping and then the time’s ticking down and you got to delay a game or you got to take a timeout or you end up the game with one timeout left or no timeouts left cuz the operations weren’t good. He looks a little confused out there. He looks like a deer in headlights. I never saw that. I didn’t see it against Baltimore when he was getting hit hit the whole second half. So, I think the poise, the confidence by playing in a lot of games in college, both at Jackson State and at Colorado, has helped him. And certainly, I think when you think about the plays that he made down the field, we talked about accuracy with him. That was the thing with He’s so accurate. He can be a surgeon. If you just give him a a fortress in front of him, give him some time, he can be a surgeon. And some of the throws he made and he only had the one sack where he almost got it back to the line of scrimmage. It wasn’t an eight, nine, 10 yard loss. It was what, two yards and he almost got it back to the line of scrimmage. He got the ball out. He showed touch. He when he had a let it rip, he did. Um he had the one bad throw when the linebacker sunk in the hook zone and he picked it off. Okay, that that happens. Baker got had a bad pick against the the Bills that turned that game a couple weeks ago. It all happens. Not going to they’re going to learn from mistakes in order to get better. You got to make mistakes and you learn from those mistakes and he’ll keep making them and he’s going to have uneven performances. We have some good, bad, and ugly. That’s just the nature of being a rookie quarterback in this league who never played with the ones, right? But I think for Shadore, I feel good because everything I see with him, he looked like an NFL starting quarterback. And that’s the most important thing you can say about a rookie in this league. First of all, I’m proud of you, Mel. I’m proud. That was fairly level-headed. I thought that might be a little more dramatic from you. I’m never one. I don’t do victory laps. Okay. I don’t do victory for one game because I go back I go, “Hey, who had the best debut ever in the history of rookie quarterbacks?” Will Le did. Oh, I think I think touchdown passing. Wasn’t it Marcus Mariota as well? Yeah. Again, you know, and then you have just, you know, things happen organization and whatever when we get into that, but I I I I never go into anything overconfident where it’s a game when I my high school Calbert Hall when we were winning championship. I didn’t go in any of those games, oh, we’re going to win this game or we’re the I go in nervous about every game and about every player I like. I I I will never Josh Allen the same way. Never gonna ever do I never will you ever see me do a victory lap. I’m just I just like to I always consider myself and Green knows this. I consider myself a defense attorney for a lot of young players who are who are unfairly criticized. So I always tell Green and Durant it’s like that’s what you feel like a defense attorney because you get all this craziness thrust upon these players and a lot of it’s just complete BS. Yeah. Kyper and Kyper representing Levis and Levis of the last episode. People of course recall that. Um, the two things that really were the most important for me in the positive category for Shadore, one was the throw that he made to Isaiah Bond, which was a 50 plus yard reception, was probably the best throw from any Cleveland Browns quarterback all season. I don’t know that that’s a play that Dylan Gabriel has in his bag, alluding some pressure, driving the football down the field with accuracy. That was a great throw from Shadore. Second of all, Mel mentioned it already, uh, one sack taken all day, and that was a problem against the Ravens when he played without any preparation, of course, the week prior after Dylan Gabriel got concussed, but that was a trait coming into the NFL that I wanted to see better from Shador Sanders. When pressure comes down on you, are you going to try to step up into the pocket and elude it, or will you try to backpedal your way out of it, which for a average athlete at best at the quarterback spot is not a recipe for success. Those who thinks were good, let’s be candid about this performance and this game. It was the defense. The Browns had 10 sacks of Gino Smith. The Raiders mustered a measly 10 points, seven of which came late late in that game. Most of what Shador Sanders was asked to do was throw the football on easy completions. Uh so I think this was a solid overall debut for Shador Sanders. I do not have any different bottom line feelings about the Browns quarterback room now and going forward. I still fully expect them to be in the market for a quarterback at the very top of the 2026 NFL draft. And also one other last thing on this, you know, the defense was playing great and they didn’t have to ask him to do that much. I mean, they didn’t have to. Just don’t turn it over. He had the one turnover that resulted in three points. That’s it. But, you know, don’t we’re not they’re not going to score. They can’t get anything. Once we got a 14 points on the board, they’re not getting the 14. So, I think they knew that as well. But, I think when you look at the Jerry Judy play, he makes the throw to Jerry Judy. Now, Jerry Judy’s doing whatever he was doing. and he ends up fumbling the ball when that could have resulted in more points. So, that would have been a drive that could have gone down and maybe gotten another touchdown. So, uh I think they did what they needed to do. He did what he needed to do. That’s all you can do as a young quarterback. You know, win the game and he won his game. Something hasn’t been happening said. So, we’ll move on. Like I said, there’s going to be uneven performances. We’ll see how they handle all Dylan Gabriel coming back from the concussion. How they work that out the rest of the year. And to the point about these young quarterbacks is always the next best thing. What they have to see internally is, and I’m not talking about Dylan, I think it’s Shadore. Shador is the one that like I say looks like an NFL starting a successful NFL starting quarterback with more time and more experience coming his

On this episode of “First Draft”, Mike Greenberg, Field Yates and Mel Kiper Jr. break down Shedeur Sanders’ first NFL start, leading the Browns to a win over the Las Vegas Raiders.
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