Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders thinks he knows why so many people are rooting for him to fail.
Sanders has been criticized for some of his conduct leading up to the NFL Draft, but the rookie does not think that is necessarily because of anything he has done. Instead, he thinks many people’s opinions of him are shaped by how they feel about his father Deion.
“They don’t care about other people’s opinion of you,” Sanders said of his critics, via Jimmy Watkins of cleveland.com. “They go based off their own. 99% of hatred (directed at me) is toward Pops. And then I’m just his son.
“It’s just the older generation that does it to me rather than the younger people. Because when I come in person, there’s no negativity I see. But it’s all over online.”
Sanders definitely made some pre-draft missteps, and some of his meetings reportedly did not go well. It is certainly possible, if not likely, that his association with his father hurt him more than it helped him. Shedeur coming off as entitled in those meetings, however, was his own miscalculation.
Sanders himself has taken the right attitude since falling to the fifth round of the NFL Draft. He knows he has a great deal to prove. His inner circle has not been completely helpful, but the Browns do not appear to have any complaints about his attitude so far.