Shedeur Sanders Reportedly Was Top QB on Giants' Board After Cam Ward Ahead of Draft

Even though the New York Giants wound up not drafting Shedeur Sanders, there was a point in the pre-draft process when they really liked him as a prospect.

On the latest episode of the Scoop City podcast (starts at 10:00 mark), The Athletic's Dianna Russini reported toward the end of the 2024 season the Giants had Sanders ranked as the No. 1 quarterback on their big board.

"Once they realized they weren't gonna get Cam Ward," Russini reported, "Shedeur to them was their top quarterback."

Things clearly changed in the months between the end of the season into the draft. One of the key turning points seems to be the Giants' in-person meeting with Sanders.

On April 24, hours before the start of the draft, NFL draft guru Todd McShay wrote in his newsletter Sanders' visit with Giants head coach Brian Daboll "did not go particularly well" due to "some frustration between the two regarding Sanders’s preparation of an install package."

Daboll didn't provide any specific details about his evaluation of Sanders when asked about McShay's report following the first round of the draft.

We know that New York eventually moved Jaxson Dart over Sanders on its board because the team traded back into the first round to select the Mississippi quarterback with the No. 25 overall pick when Sanders was still available.

The Giants don't seem like the only team that came out of the pre-draft process feeling less positive toward Sanders than when it initially began.

Sanders ultimately landed with a team that had been thought of as a landing spot for him when the Cleveland Browns selected him in the fifth round with the 144th overall pick.

It was a precipitous fall for a player who may have once been thought of as a candidate to go No. 3 overall to the Giants back when he was the top-ranked quarterback on their board.