When Aaron Rodgers greets Shedeur Sanders on the field Sunday, he’s sure to feel old.
Rodgers, 42, was asked this week if he remembers playing against Deion Sanders, the Pro Football Hall of Famer and father of the Cleveland Browns’ current starting quarterback. Rodgers didn’t only remember sharing a field with Deion — he remembered the score of the game when he was summoned into the game off the bench 20 years ago.
“Yeah, I didn’t throw him a pick, thankfully,” Rodgers told reporters this week. “But he was playing in Baltimore in 2005 when we went down there on Monday night. And I came in the game. We were down 41-3, and I had a fun exchange with him between the third and fourth quarters.”
Rodgers has been around long enough to share the field with multiple father-son combos in the NFL, but Sunday’s game against Cleveland should be one of the more fun full-circle moments of his career.
Shedeur has a fan in Rodgers, who had a similar (but in the end, far less humiliating) slide on Day 1 of the 2025 NFL Draft. He still wound up going in the first round, No. 24 overall to the Green Bay Packers, but similar to Sanders, draft experts expected him to be one of the first QBs off the board that year.
Shedeurs’ plummet from expected first-round pick to head-scratching fifth-rounder was something else entirely, but he’s already proving all 32 NFL franchises wrong. Rodgers told reporters this week that he’s been following Shedeur’s journey since the Jackson State days, and his take on Cleveland’s young QB likely echoes that of almost every NFL veteran.
Aaron Rodgers hopes Browns QB Shedeur Sanders continues to prove the NFL wrong
The Browns will have some major decisions to make with their QB depth chart this offseason. Sanders has shown some obvious promise, but the team also has the Deshaun Watson mess to sort out, and a potential top-two draft pick in 2026 that would open up even more options.
Rodgers seemed to speak for the entire NFL world on Shedeur’s situation this week.
“I’ve followed Shedeur’s career, like any football fan who watched him go from Jackson to Boulder. And being a former Pac 12 school I was pulling for him. You know, there was a tough draft slide; obviously, much longer wait than mine was. But it seems like he’s been patient, and he’s worked on his craft, and he’s been playing pretty good the last few weeks.”
Sanders has an intriguing opportunity over these next two weeks — the chance to singlehandedly crush the team’s chances for the No. 1 overall pick. Per Zac Jackson of The Athletic, Cleveland would drop at least three spots in the projected draft order with a win over the Steelers this week, and could drop as many as five spots depending on league-wide results.
If the Ravens lose tonight in Green Bay, the Steelers clinch the AFC North title.
— Zac Jackson (@AkronJackson) December 27, 2025
If the Browns lose their final two, they’re guaranteed a top 2 pick in April with a slim chance they could get No. 1. With a win, they’d drop 3-5 spots depending on other results. https://t.co/UjpqNWrRqw
As Sanders himself has admitted in recent weeks, nothing’s guaranteed beyond this season. The range of outcomes include him entering the offseason as the Browns’ QB1, to him getting shipped to another team entirely.
Coaches and players throughout the NFL continue to see a young player who learns quickly from mistakes, puts coaching points into action, and improves with every game. Shedeur’s future may still be very much up in the air, but it’s becoming more clear by the week that Sanders has plenty of support from outside the organization.