Mel Kiper Jr.’s Shedeur Sanders Fixation Hurt ESPN Draft Coverage

Mel Kiper Jr.’s overly dramatic performance during the 2025 NFL Draft made me think he should find a way to relax—a warm bath, meditation, a beverage of choice; any of them would work. He seemed more upset about the fall of Shedeur Sanders into the fifth round than the Colorado quarterback himself. 

Kiper Jr. is the elder statesman of draft gurus and a living legend. NFL Draft coverage would not be the phenomenon it has become without him. Unfortunately, he hijacked ESPN’s draft coverage this year by ranting and raving about Sanders. He talked over other hosts and analysts, and seemed personally insulted that teams were not listening to his advice.

Passion is a great quality on TV. But Kiper is a draft expert, not a prosecuting attorney. And like every pundit, he’s swung and missed on QB busts. Jimmy Clausen and JaMarcus Russell come to mind.

I enjoyed ESPN’s draft coverage. Mike Greenberg and Rece Davis again aced the difficult job of hosting and directing traffic. Louis Riddick was spot-on as usual. Insider Peter Schrager was a great addition. But it felt like Kiper wouldn’t let anybody else breathe. 

For three days, he frequently obsessed over why nobody was picking Sanders, his fifth overall prospect. He ripped NFL teams as “clueless” and warned about “fake news” surrounding the Sanders family.

At one point, Kiper said he was “disgusted” that no franchise had selected Sanders. “I don’t understand what the heck’s going on with this. Fifth player on my board, never happened before in 47 years where a player that high has dropped this far into the fourth round at quarterback.” 

On Saturday, Kiper melted down as he argued with his ESPN colleagues on the set. “The NFL has been clueless for 50 years when it comes to evaluating quarterbacks. CLUELESS!” he ranted. “They have no idea what they’re doing in terms of evaluating quarterbacks. That’s proof. There’s proof of that. They say, ‘We know exactly what we’re talking about when it comes to quarterbacks.’ They don’t!”

Even the unflappable Davis lost his patience with Kiper Jr., noting that yelling at the NFL is not productive. “Nobody has batted 1.000,” he said. An exasperated Riddick essentially told Kiper to get over it. “The draft has spoken,” said Riddick.  

Lest we forget, Kiper also overshadowed Cam Ward’s selection as the No. 1 overall pick by making Round 1 discussion mostly about who else but Sanders. 

Maybe there was a method to the madness. Every draft has a high-profile player worth talking about. In this case, there were two: Travis Hunter, a Colorado teammate who was selected No. 2 overall, and the son of Deion Sanders. Shedeur’s epic drop over three days certainly made for riveting TV. 

But NFL Draft analysts, even the legendary Kiper, shouldn’t make themselves the story. It felt over the top. After watching The Ten Commandments, I thought of Kiper  as Charlton Heston’s Moses, angrily cursing the NFL GM’s who stood in for sinning Israelites.

Meanwhile, Sanders reacted graciously to his selection in Saturday’s fifth round, No. 144 overall. “I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity throughout everything,” he told reporters. “I don’t ever focus on a negative or even think about the negative because the positive happened so fast.”

As veteran NFL reporter Ed Werder, a longtime colleague of Kiper, wrote on X/Twitter: “Why does it seem that Mel Kiper is more personally outraged by the Shedeur Sanders situation than the player himself has been publicly?” 

Great question.