Mel Kiper Jr. Talks Trending During Shedeur Sanders Draft Slide, Didn't Read Any Posts

Mel Kiper Jr. addressed the draft controversy surrounding his evaluation of Shedeur Sanders, admitting he had no idea he was trending and hadn’t read any of the posts about it.

"I didn't even know about it," Kiper Jr. said on the Adam Schefter Podcast (23:00 mark). "I was told… 'Mel, you're trending on Twitter.' I don't know what they said; I gotta believe it wasn't nice, but I didn't read one of them. I was told I was trending over Shedeur Sanders."

However, the heavy backlash he received on social media did not faze the 64-year-old.

"At the end of the first day, when I was the one being hammered... I was trending on Twitter," Kiper Jr. said (20:30 mark). "And that was in the maybe third, fourth, fifth round, when Shedeur was falling and we had the reaction in the swimming pool, everybody said, 'Where'd you have him? I had him ninth – I had him 15th – I had him 25th.' Well, you look like an idiot too, right? If we're going by mocks (drafts)."

Kiper Jr. was outspoken throughout the draft slide of former Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Sanders, who, after once being projected as a top-5 pick, ultimately fell to the fifth round as the fifth quarterback selected, going to the Cleveland Browns.

"If you had him in the first round and he goes in the fifth it's a little off. Something's not right here, it doesn't compute," Kiper Jr. continued. "Now, we get back to reality and we say Shedeur goes into Cleveland with a lot of quarterbacks in that quarterback room and we'll see how it plays out."

Sanders entered an already crowded quarterback room featuring Deshaun Watson, Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett and fellow 2025 draft pick Dillon Gabriel, with Sanders notably being the only one not currently listed on the Browns' depth chart.

During the draft broadcast, Kiper Jr. had plenty to say about Sanders’ slide, at one point calling it “disgusting” and admitting he “doesn’t understand what the heck is going on.”