In Thursday’s column about the NFL draft, we noted that Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders — the son of Primetime Deion Sanders — was projected to go in the first round.
He didn’t. Nor was he drafted in the second or third rounds, either. Five quarterbacks have already been drafted, and Shedeur is still sitting at home, twiddling his thumbs, and getting prank called.
President Trump doesn’t like it one bit:
It’s confused ESPN, too. As they put it:
The Shedeur Sanders saga has gone from unexpected to inexplicable. …Widely projected as one of the top quarterback prospects in this year's draft, Sanders is stunningly still available entering the fourth round Saturday.
The NFL draft is a notoriously inexact science. The game’s greatest quarterback, Tom Brady, went in the sixth round (199th overall), but his greatest rival, Peyton Manning, was selected first overall.
For every rule, there are a million exceptions.
Shedeur Sanders doesn’t have an overpowering arm; that’s true. But neither did Drew Brees, and he had a Hall of Fame career. Sanders resurrected two moribund college football programs, proved he could shoulder the spotlight, and has been preparing for this moment his entire life.
He’s uniquely ready for the NFL.
But on the other hand (arm?), Danny Wuerffel didn’t have a strong arm either, and he sucked in the NFL. Just couldn’t overcome it. (Won a Heisman in college, though.) And Todd Marinovich was also trained from birth to be an NFL quarterback and was blessed with superior genetics, and he spectacularly self-destructed after being a first-round draft pick.
NFL coaches don’t like distractions. Unless you’re a superstar, you’re not worth the headache. And they especially don’t like it when the backup quarterback overshadows the starter. The moment you hit a losing streak, all the fans will turn on the starting QB and pound the table for the backup.
It’s a recipe for losing control of the locker room.
This mindset cost Tim Tebow his career. The guy was athletic, smart, and 100% capable of being a backup quarterback in the NFL (and a helluva end-zone threat; Tebow would’ve been perfect for the Tush Push), but he’d overshadow the starter. His fans were hardcore.
NFL coaches don’t want that from a backup.
It puts Shedeur Sanders in a vexing dilemma: on one hand, it’s frickin’ nuts that teams are selecting backup safeties, guards, and tight ends ahead of him, because as a risk/reward proposition, the probability of Sanders being a difference-maker is infinitely higher. He’s a potential franchise quarterback!
And you can grab him for just a fourth rounder.
But on the other hand, most kids who get drafted late don’t become starters. The number is even lower for quarterbacks. So if you’re an NFL coach — and perpetually on the verge of being fired — why would you bring a distraction into your locker room that probably won’t pay dividends?
He’s not worth the headache.
(Unless, of course, he turns out to be a Super Bowl-winning franchise quarterback, and you’re fired for passing on him.)
It wouldn’t be a shock if Shedeur Sanders is Marcus Vick, Part II. As Mike Vick’s younger brother, Marcus also had great genes and intriguing potential. But he had glaring deficiencies to his game and his character. Instead of going in the first three rounds, he went undrafted. The Dolphins signed him as a rookie free agent, designating him a “wide receiver/quarterback/return specialist.”
Marcus Vick played a little bit of receiver in the fourth quarter of a Week 7 football game. He didn’t catch a single pass. After the 2006 season, Miami cut him, and that was it.
Career over.
But then again, it also wouldn’t be a total shock if Shedeur Sanders proves everyone wrong. A decade from now, Sanders might have a bunch of Super Bowl rings — and all those general managers who chose a third corner or second tight end will look like dunces. This is football: Nobody knows nothin’.
So much of talent evaluation is subjective.
Greatness is subjective, too. Often, it comes down to the criteria of the speaker. For example: who’s the greatest football player of all time?
When I was a kid, the answer was Jim Brown. He was, by a landslide, the greatest running back in history. Then, after the 49ers collected a slew of rings in the 1980s, the answer was switched to Joe Montana — Mister Four-and-Oh in the Super Bowl.
But after collecting Super Bowl titles by the barrelful, the trendy answer in 2025 is Tom Brady.
And that’s fair. If you’re defining greatness by winning championships and playing at a ridiculously elite level for a ridiculously long time, Tom Brady is the GOAT — the Greatest Of All Time.
Under that criteria, football’s Mount Rushmore would include four faces: Tom Brady, Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, and Jim Brown.
But there’s another way of judging greatness: instead of accentuating longevity, you base it on one player’s best versus another player’s best.
Even if their “best” didn’t last very long.
And that skews the answer. Even at Tom Brady’s “best,” he still had games where he threw interceptions, missed receivers, and was the reason why the Patriots lost. Same goes for Jerry Rice: He’s the greatest receiver of all time, but he still had plenty of games with drops and minimal contributions — and I’m talking during his prime years!
Speaking of prime, don’t forget Primetime: Perhaps he’s the greatest cover corner who ever lived, but even during his best years, Deion Sanders still had games where good receivers would torch him.
During one Monday Night Football game, Michael Irvin beat him like a drum, Deion was tackled for a loss, was penalized, and his team was embarrassed. Mr. Primetime also fumbled a kickoff.
Here are the (low)lights.
But there’s one guy who, during his prime, didn’t lose to anyone. He played all over the offensive line, mostly at left guard.
And he utterly destroyed everyone.
Didn’t matter if the guy in front of him was a Hall of Fame defensive tackle, like a Warren Sapp. Or a Pro Bowl-level talent, like a Dana Stubblefield. It simply didn’t matter, because this guy not only won EVERY single matchup, EVERY single week. And he beat the other NFL players so badly, they began to fake injuries.
There was no cure for Allen-itis:
[Larry] Allen's teammates talked about it quite openly during his career, and more recently, opposing players have joined in, most notably former Giants All-Pro defensive end Michael Strahan, who once referred to Allen as "a legalized killer" and famously said, "The saddest thing is how many players will watch him on film during the week and then pull up with some mysterious injury or flu or something. We call that catching 'Allen-itis.'"
When Larry Allen was nine years old, he was stabbed 12 times while protecting his younger brother. The same streets of Compton that N.W.A. got rich rapping about were Larry Allen’s boyhood reality.
He heard gunshots every night.
Because of his poor grades, he played college ball at dinky Sonoma State. According to legend, in one game against UC Davis, he knocked unconscious a defensive tackle, a safety, and a linebacker… all on the same play!
Larry Allen was probably the strongest man in NFL history. A generation prior, defensive tackle Randy White was considered “The Manster” (half man, half monster). He was the first man in Dallas Cowboys team history to bench a remarkable 500 pounds!
Well, Larry Allen benched 700 pounds.
If Randy White was half monster, Larry Allen was Godzilla, King Kong, and the Kraken, all rolled in one.
And he was fast, too. Stupidly fast. Humans his size aren’t supposed to move like this:
“Larry Allen! I can’t believe that!”His rookie year, Larry Allen played out of position, subbing in at offensive tackle because of injuries. But he was injured, too: could barely even walk. Another famously powerful man, Reggie White, knocked him around on national TV: “Welcome to the NFL, rookie!”
It was the last time Larry Allen was embarrassed.
For the next half-decade, he broke bones and ate souls.
Justin Tuck was a very good defensive lineman. (Probably spends most of his time nowadays reminding people that he’s Justin Tuck and NOT Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, who seems to enjoy massages way too much.) Tuck went to a few Pro Bowls, won a pair of Super Bowl rings, and was inducted into the New York Giants Ring of Honor. When the ex-Giant was asked about the strongest man he ever played against, the name “Larry Allen” was on the tip of his tongue.
TUCK: Only one person that I’ve ever went against that I was, like, man, this guy is unbeatable! It’s a guy names Larry Allen. I got him when he was quote-unquote ‘old Larry Allen,’ but this guy was a brick wall. …Young Larry Allen would go up to the line of scrimmage and go “Whoop!” and he would literally let the tackle know that Emmitt Smith and Moose Johnston is going to be running through this hole right here and there’s nothing you can do about it! …There’s a reason why Emmitt Smith has more rushing yards in the history of the NFL…
ESPN: Wait a minute! You’re telling us that Larry Allen would announce to you with a fake train whistle that he was coming straight to where you were going?!
TUCK: Nothin’ you can do about it. Whatcha gonna do about it? That guy used to lift, like, 700 pounds… It would be like me playing football against my [little] son.
Sadly, Larry Allen’s life was short. He died 10 months ago, on June 2, 2024. He was only 52.
But for a couple of years, he was the single greatest football player who ever walked on planet Earth.
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