Former Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders returned to his alma mater during the Cleveland Browns bye week, surprising his father, NFL legend Deion Sanders, ahead of the team’s game against the Arizona Wildcats.
The 2025 season hasn’t exactly delivered what either member of the Sanders family had in mind. After a strong season in 2024, the son of the NFL legend was expected to be an early selection in the 2025 NFL draft. Instead, he fell into the fifth round before being scooped up by the Browns.
The Buffaloes, meanwhile, sit at a disappointing 3-5 on the season. While his NFL team has an off week, Sanders opted to return to Colorado where he appeared to sent a direct message to the Browns brass.
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The young quarterback showed up on the Colorado sidelines wearing a shirt that read, “The rejected will be respected” — a verse that his father and members of the Sanders family have said several times over the year.
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Sanders has been the subject of trade rumors as the Nov. 4 deadline draws near with the Browns seemingly willing to leave Dillon Gabriel as the starting quarterback. Head coach Kevin Stefanksi revealed Gabriel would start coming out of the team’s bye week, but is hopeful Sanders will heal up from a back injury.
“He obviously came in Saturday with his back injury,” Stefanski said Monday. “We were hopeful that he’d be able to move around well enough to suit up on Sunday. But, put him through a pregame warmup, and obviously just didn’t feel like he was ready to play … but he’s getting better every day and I’m hopeful that he’ll continue to improve.”
Offensive coordinator Tommy Rees also revealed Sanders is getting plenty of reps in practice.
“There’s a lot of walk-through reps that go around, there’s a lot of learning opportunities that go around, there’s reps built into practice that are still game-plan reps that might not be with the first group all the time,” Rees said. “So, definitely using all the resources we have to make sure that we maximize it.”
Cleveland faces off against the New York Jets coming out of its bye week.
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