Shedeur Sanders will be a highly coveted quarterback prospect going into the 2025 NFL Draft.
A Heisman favorite, Sanders has helped lead a Colorado Buffaloes turnaround from 2023’s 4-8 season. The Buffaloes are now 7-2 and ranked 18th in the nation.
Sanders, along with wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter, has been front and center. He’s thrown for 2,882 yards with 24 touchdowns and just six interceptions. He also has rushed for another four scores.
Sanders will be a top-10 pick and could be the first quarterback off the board.
With so many quarterback-needy teams going into 2025, there will be plenty of teams who would want to draft Sanders. However, one NFL insider believes Sanders will land with this team and start for them next season.
Las Vegas Raiders have mess at quarterback
The Las Vegas Raiders are currently in quarterback purgatory and will be looking for a new face of the franchise next season.
The Raiders signed Gardner Minshew to a two-year, $25 million contract in the offseason. He overtook Aidan O’Connell for the starting spot, and it hasn’t gone well, to say the least. In Minshew’s seven starts, he’s gone 2-5 with just six touchdowns, eight interceptions, and only 187.6 passing yards per game, ranking 30th in the NFL. He’s also been sacked 23 times, benched in three of his starts, and has 12 total turnovers, which ranks second-most in the league.
The Raiders eventually sat Minshew for O’Connell following Week 5’s loss to the Denver Broncos but brought him back into the lineup after O’Connell broke his thumb in a Week 9 defeat by the Cincinnati Bengals.
Going into Week 11’s matchup with the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce said the team will stick with the struggling Minshew over the recently signed Desmond Ridder.
“Listen, when we brought in Gardner, we expected, obviously, the play that we had seen in the past and at some point, you’ve got to give a guy confidence,” Pierce said, via ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez. “And there’s been times, obviously, with turnovers and other things that have taken place, where we made decisions to either put him on the bench or go to another quarterback.
“But this week I felt like Gardner gives us the best opportunity to move forward and he has every opportunity to go out there and help us get to a win.”
NFL insider predicts Shedeur Sanders will start for Las Vegas Raiders in 2025
Because of the Raiders’ mess at quarterback, The Athletic’s Tashan Reed believes Sanders will be their pick and start for them next season.
“It’s highly unlikely that any of Minshew, O’Connell and Ridder emerge as the long-term answer. The Raiders need to find their quarterback of the future next offseason, and the best way to do that is through the draft,” Reed wrote.
Heading into Week 11, the 2-7 Raiders currently hold the fifth overall pick. Would Sanders last that long if that current pick holds? Highly unlikely, since the New York Giants, Cleveland Browns, and Tennessee Titans are ahead of them right now.
The Raiders are seven-point road underdogs for Sunday’s contest against the Dolphins.
Related:Â Dallas Cowboys coaching candidates to replace Mike McCarthy