Shadeur Sanders taught us something huge last year, and it’s only going to get worse and worse as time goes by. Social media is a massively effective tool to promote a prospect to a level well beyond their actual value as a player. By every measurable account, Sanders was a late round prospect. But by using a marketing hype machine via social media, he was able to be the talking point of almost every single media draft pundit out there. They all had him as a first rounder, Colin Cowherd demanded the Steelers trade their first and TJ Watt to move up to 2nd overall to take him (I can’t stand that dumbass). Of course Sanders also had the hype of his father, but you really don’t need that kind of pedestal to accomplish what Shadeur did. You need alot of money and a marketing team that understands the algorithms to constantly place a prospect into the spotlight. What Shadeur also showed the sports world is just how easily manipulated and uninformed the media draft experts actually are. Sure, they use information from teams and “anonymius sources” in the league to get the lowdown on players, and I’m sure they do some player analysis themselves, but I guarantee you they rely much more heavily on predictive market analysis based on who people are talking about and who’s doing the talking. Hype a player up through media influences, get some talking heads to mention said player, and over time the fire burns hotter and hotter and you get a movement of fans clamoring for a player they actually know very little about. In reality the media doesn’t care if the player is worthy, because if the player isn’t drafted highly they can continue to hype it as a divisive story. The media doesn’t care if they’re right, they care that you’re watching. This is coming more and more in the future, you’re going to see social media movements on HS kids, college kids, maybe even younger leagues to the point that we will know the names of players whether or not their on field performance warrants it. The one saving grace thus far is that the NFL execs and scouts seem to be a step ahead of it, and they at least evaluated Sanders as a player without the hype train and he was drafted where his play and talent dictated, but time and time again GM’s fall for the demand of the fanbase over their own common sense.
I think your third line is just patently false though. I think Shedeur’s father and the circus atmosphere is what made teams continually pass on him. Even as a 5th round pick, he has people who hate him and people who love him. Teams don’t want a polarizing person in their building. He’s the all time leader in CFB completion percentage, he led an offensive minded conference in passing yards, touchdowns, completion percentage, yards per attempt and passer rating. He led all of CFB in completion percentage. Whatever manipulation you think they were doing or able to do, it clearly failed. So if he was always truly a late round prospect, he landed where he was supposed to be, no? Regardless, I agree that evaluating prospects is way different now especially considering they will all mostly be multi-millionaires before they play a NFL preseason snap. I posted several years ago that it’ll hurt the NFL game in the long term since players will inevitably be rich enough to not want to play for too long. It looks like it’s likely going to help NFL Quarterbacks in their preparation for the pro game though. Bo Nix (5 years starting in college), Jayden Daniels (5 years), Penix (5 years starting) all had time to mature in college and grow into the position before they had to declare and be drafted later without a chance at being good or even playing.
