Mike Florio ,
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If that fan lawsuit over the draft-day free-fall of Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders ever goes anywhere, a Hall of Fame running back could be a star witness.
Eric Dickerson recently claimed that teams were told to not draft Sanders.
“I tell you this much, what I heard from someone that’s in the NFL, that the NFL told [teams] don’t draft him, do not draft him ,” Dickerson said on the Roggin and Rodney Show, via Christian Arnold of the New York Post . “We’re going to make an example out of him. And this came from a very good source, a very good source.”
So was this a case of the Browns, who created a mess for the league by giving quarterback Deshaun Watson a fully-guaranteed contract, going rogue? Not as Dickerson tells it.
“I won’t say who — somebody called the Cleveland Browns and said, ‘Don’t do that, draft him,’” Dickerson said. “Because they weren’t going to draft him, either. . . .They were forced into drafting him, because somebody made a call to them.”
Dickerson explained that the original goal was to have Sanders not be drafted at all.
“He was not gonna get drafted, to basically show you this is what happens when you do this,” Dickerson said. “When I say it came from a good source, I say it came from a very, very good source.”
Is any of this plausible? At one level, no. At another level, maybe.
Consider this. Sanders fell (we were told after the draft) because he viewed the pre-draft process as he was being recruited, not as he was being interviewed. He was essentially pushing back against the “honor and a privilege” nonsense. If his approach had been ratified by a high selection in the draft, others may have done the same.
And the NFL does not want the cyborgs to become self-aware.
So it’s not crazy. In the hidden (until it wasn’t) collusion ruling, the arbitrator found that the NFL’s Management Council, with the blessing of the Commissioner, encouraged teams as a result of the Watson contract to resist fully-guaranteed contracts. Would it be nuts to think that the league, which has made the draft into a massive offseason tentpole event by perpetuating the notion that it’s a Harry Potter sorting-hat ceremony, will react negatively to any player who doesn’t play along?
“ It’s a job interview .” We hear it every year. Players get poked and prodded and interrogated and scrutinized. For the system to work, the players need to submit. If they ever realize the power that comes from saying, “It’s an honor and a privilege for you to be able to employ us,” the whole thing could fall apart.
It’s all about power. It’s all about showing those who don’t have the power that there are consequences to not yielding to the power.
Colin Kaepernick learned that lesson. Shedeur Sanders, if Dickerson’s source is accurate, learned that lesson, too. That lesson will be repeated until enough players do something to short-circuit the entire system.
Which will never happen, if the NFL can help it.
So, no, it’s not crazy to think that someone put out the word to send a clear and unambiguous message to Shedeur Sanders.
Big Shield combines gambling, pro football, and the mob into a cautionary tale regarding inside information, and the dangers that come from selling it.
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