Shedeur

Marshawn Lynch had “I’m just here so I won’t get fined.”

Bill Belichick had “We’re on to Cincinnati.”

Now Shedeur Sanders has come up with an equally inventive way of responding without responding to reporters’ questions: silence.

Sure, the Cleveland Browns rookie moved his mouth and gestured when he was asked Wednesday about remaining the team’s No. 3 quarterback after fellow first-year QB Dillon Gabriel was promoted to starter.

But no actual words came out of his mouth.

Essentially, Sanders hit the mute button on himself — which is what made the response so brilliant.

Sanders was a star college quarterback for Colorado, playing for his father and NFL legend Deion Sanders, and was considered by some to be a first-round pick going into the 2025 draft. Instead, he dropped to the Browns in the fifth round (No. 144 overall) after Cleveland had already selected Gabriel out of Oregon in the third round.

For the first four weeks of the 2025 season, Gabriel was the Browns’ No. 2 quarterback and Sanders was No. 3, both behind 18-year veteran Joe Flacco.

But Flacco has been ineffective in leading Cleveland to a 1-3 start, which prompted the Browns to announce Wednesday that Gabriel will be their Week 5 starter. Flacco dropped to No. 2 with Sanders remaining at No. 3.

Later Wednesday in the Browns locker room, Sanders was asked by a reporter for his thoughts on not moving up on the depth chart. He smiled broadly and proceeded to give a voiceless answer. Reporters tried at least four more times to get Sanders to answer similar questions, eliciting only a similar pantomimed response.

Sanders’ behavior may have been in response to critical remarks made Monday by former NFL coach and current analyst Rex Ryan.

Last week, during an interview with ESPNCleveland, Sanders was asked about his feelings on being a backup quarterback in the NFL. During the course of the conversation, he made some comments — including “if you see the quarterback play in the league right now, I’m capable of playing better than that” and “a lot of teams would be playing me, but that’s not in God’s plan right now” — that rubbed Ryan the wrong way.

“This kid talks and he runs his mouth,” Ryan said days later on ESPN’s “Get Up.” “Like he said, ‘I can be a starting quarterback’ with his arms crossed like this. Get your a— in the front row and study and do all that. If I know, the whole league knows. Quit being an embarrassment that way. You’ve got the talent to be the quarterback, you should be. You should be embarrassed that you’re not the quarterback now.”

Deion Sanders confirmed that son Shedeur Sanders was called by at least three teams during the 2025 NFL draft and suggested that the former Colorado quarterback turned two of them down before being selected by the Cleveland Browns in the fifth round.

Shedeur Sanders had been considered by many to be a potential first-round pick before plummeting to the Browns at No. 144 overall, after Cleveland had already selected former Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel in the third round.

Earlier this month, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that the Baltimore Ravens had planned on drafting Sanders with the No. 141 overall pick until he let them know that he didn’t want to sit on a roster behind quarterback Lamar Jackson, who is a two-time league MVP and only 28 years old.

Last week, former NFL quarterback Cam Newton said on his podcast “4th&1 ” that he had heard that the Philadelphia Eagles had also wanted to draft Sanders at some point. Like the Ravens, however, Philadelphia also has a superstar quarterback who may not have even reached his prime in 27-year-old Jalen Hurts, who was named the MVP of Super Bowl LIX in February.

Deion Sanders, an NFL legend who coached his son at Colorado, seemed to confirm all of that during an appearance on Jason and Travis Kelce’s “New Heights” podcast, which was published Monday.

“Philly called us on draft day. They didn’t mention that. I just let a cat out of the bag,” Coach Prime told the Kelce brothers. “Philly called. Who [else] was it? Baltimore and the Browns. … I played for Baltimore, so me and [Ravens executive vice president of player development] Ozzie [Newsome] are cool … and he wanted to talk to Shedeur as well as he wanted to talk to me.

“I put Shedeur on the phone. And Shedeur — I don’t want to say it went, but how in the world can somebody fault him for saying or thinking, ‘Why in the world would I go back up Lamar for 10 more years?’ Like, who comes in with that mindset?”

Sanders added: “Where do these guys come from, that sit on these platforms and say, ‘Oh, you should have sat in behind and learned the game and been what they developed.’ When have the pros ever developed anybody? By the time you get to the NFL, they expect you to know what you need to do and to do it, or somebody else gonna get in there and do it.”

The 2011 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee summed it up this way: “I’ve never sat on a bench and said, ‘Well, I learned a lot today.’ Who learns sitting on the bench?”

Sanders said he’s been preaching patience and preparation to his 23-year-old son, who currently sits behind 40-year-old veteran Joe Flacco and 24-year-old Gabriel on the Browns depth chart and has yet to see the field during the regular season.

“Be patient and be ready,” Sanders said he’s told Shedeur. “They call your name and you ain’t ready — we ain’t built like that. Sanders, we ain’t built like that. We always ready. We don’t have to get ready. And I want you to be patient. You don’t force nothing that ain’t that it may not be time [for].”

Sanders also said he has a feeling that patience will pay off for his son sooner rather than later.

“It’s coming up,” he said. “I got a prediction. I ain’t telling nobody. I got a feeling when it’s gonna go down. But it’s gonna go down this year. He gonna get a shot.”