Mike Tannenbaum compares Shedeur Sanders draft slide, Laremy Tunsil gas mask incident

Not all slides in the NFL Draft are built the same. Shedeur Sanders‘ fall in April might go down as the most famous, but now the focus will be squarely on what he does to quiet his detractors at the professional level.

Prior to Sanders’ highly-publicized slide from a consensus first rounder to a fifth round pick, Laremy Tunsil’s fall in the 2016 NFL Draft was one of the more shocking. He went from being the top choice to No. 13 overall due to a leaked video of him wearing a gas mask and smoking from a bong.

ESPN’s Mike Tannenbaum likened Sanders’ slide to Tunsil’s during an edition of Get Up on Monday. While the reason Sanders’ slid might be harder to pinpoint, the former NFL general manager believes the Cleveland Browns quarterback has the opportunity to ascend at the professional level, similar to Tunsil’s trajectory.

“I was on record for months saying I thought he was either the second or third best quarterback. He’ll be a late first, maybe top of second, worst case there. But the NFL is the ultimate meritocracy, and every team is dying for a good, young quarterback. They saw something in the pre-draft process. You may disagree, but that’s the facts, the reality. Look, we drafted Laremy Tunsil with a gas mask. We’ve signed players that were suspended, and that worked out great. So, I’m saying — this is a league of second chances and forgiveness,” Tannenbaum stated.

“My point is this, when you look at the objective facts, he did go in the fifth round. Some disconnects happened in the pre-draft process. There’s no other way to explain it. With that said, he could turn it all on its head. Tom Brady was a sixth round pick. He could start on opening day. This is the beginning of the story. The reality is, 32 teams had an opinion, and he went in the fifth round.”

Alas, the facts are the facts, but only Sanders can control his narrative moving forward. Tannenbaum’s ESPN colleague in Peter Schrager echoed that sentiment, believing that the future is in the quarterback’s hands now.

“32 teams passed on Shedeur Sanders, including the Cleveland Browns, who took a quarterback in the third round before taking Shedeur Sanders,” Schrager added. “Including the Pittsburgh Steelers, who just completely waited until the sixth round to take a quarterback. Of course, including the Las Vegas Raiders, who have an owner in Tom Brady, who at the very least has served as a mentor and sort of, you know, a person that he goes to for advice.

“Here’s the bottom line, all that is erased now, except it’s really not. He’s the fourth quarterback on the death chart, and they just had OTAs, and there were glowing reviews from everyone in the media who were tracking his passes, but Shedeur Sanders still has to come in and earn every single thing. Do I still think the reports about him being ill-prepared (are true)? Look, I don’t have anyone on record telling me he was wearing headphones. I don’t have anyone on record telling me personally that he was on a FaceTime call, which is something that you read about in the media. I don’t have those stories.

“What I do have, ‘You know what? We’re good. We don’t need Shedeur Sanders. We don’t need all of that in our room.’ All that is gone now. He’s a Cleveland Brown now.”

There was no gas mask, but Shedeur Sanders fell like a rock in the 2025 NFL Draft. He wasn’t a first rounder like he dreamed, but he’ll still have his shot in Cleveland. We’ll see if he can thrive in the NFL like Laremy Tunsil, or if teams were right to pass on the Browns quarterback with their picks.