Seahawks may have dodged a franchise disaster by passing on Shedeur Sanders

The Seattle Seahawks made several bold moves in this draft. One of the most newsworthy selections of all was the one they didn't make. Or to be precise, the player they took instead of the headline guy.

Seattle made some noise in the 2025 draft. Whether it was taking the best guard in the draft with their first pick or trading up to land a possible Kam Chancellor 2.0, John Schneider didn't shy away from making bold moves throughout the weekend.

It was one of those Day 2 picks he made - and the one he didn't - that's garnered more national attention than anything else. The Seahawks have taken some hits for choosing Jalen Milroe with their fourth pick, the 92nd overall. There's some irony-or justice, whatever-in that this was the pick Seattle got in trade for Geno Smith. The news was that they didn't draft Shedeur Sanders.

Seahawks took the right player for the right reasons

Yes, I know the narrative just as well as you do. Mel Kiper was astounded that no one was taking Sanders. Kiper's darn good at his job, but he's not exactly flawless. Among his terrible projections were that Jimmy Clausen would be a star, Richard Sherman was just an average fifth-rounder, and JaMarcus Russell was a generational talent. Maybe he was at the Golden Corral buffet, but not anywhere else.

Yes, Shedeur Sanders compiled impressive stats at Colorado. Yes, he completed 74 percent of his passes and connected on 37 touchdowns, both remarkable numbers. He did that while throwing for 4,134 yards and only 10 interceptions. I see why Kiper loved the guy.

However, Sanders also took 42 sacks last year, marking the second straight year he led the Football Bowl Subdivision in sacks taken. You can blame a bad O-line for that, but his average time to throw was 2.96 seconds. That poor time ranked 110th in the FBS and will get him annihilated in the NFL. So maybe, just maybe, he has flaws in his game.

Which brings up Jalen Milroe. He has flaws in his game. When asked what part of his game he could work on, he reportedly answered, "How much time do you have?" He then proceeded to tell the team about all the things he was working on.

In contrast, Sanders reportedly answered the same question by stating that he didn't need to improve in any area. Whether he said this verbatim or not, we don't know, nor do we know how many GMs he told this to. Or if it was only to teams he didn't want to go to. As NFL Insider Jonathan Jones said, sandbagging interviews isn't the most brilliant move for an NFL prospect.

So, if you're an NFL general manager and you hear this from other team executives, are you going to make the call to bring this guy onto your team? I mean Sanders, not Jones; he seems like a cool dude. But seriously, who sounds more like a coachable team player, Milroe or the guy who's been hyped all his life by his dad?

Then there's the race narrative. It isn't just wrong: it's ignorant and embarrassingly pathetic. Milroe, for those who haven't noticed, is Black. The top three picks in the 2025 draft are all Black, including the number one selection, Cam Ward. By the way, he's also a quarterback, so the narrative that the NFL will take Black players but not at quarterback is also wrong.

I've seen the excuse made several times, yeah, but they didn't want Shedeur because he's a confident Black man. The description was, "He ain't the shuckin' and jivin' player they want." Um, okay. So Cam Ward, Travis Hunter, Abdul Carter, Ashton Jeanty - and yes, Jalen Milroe - are all just Stepin Fetchits? Do those fools even understand what you're saying? Doesn't seem like they do.

Yes, I agree that Milroe is more of a project than Sanders. But he also has a much higher ceiling than the guy the Seahawks didn't take. Plus, I doubt that Quentin Milroe will be calling Klint Kubiak every week and telling him how to use his son. We won't know for a few years if Seattle made the right choice between the two, but I'm pretty sure they got it right.