Shedeur Sanders has perfect timing after signing with new agent in Cleveland

The Cleveland Browns backup quarterback made headlines on Wednesday. Shedeur Sanders has signed with Adie von Gontard, CEO of Young Money APAA Sports. Sanders will be in familiar company as his Colorado Buffaloes teammate Travis Hunter is also represented by the same agency.

On the surface, if Young Money sounds familiar, there is a previous connection. Young Money APAA Sports was co-founded by famous rapper and friend of the Sanders family, Lil Wayne. He is the co-founder and co-CEO who aims to assist in recruiting talent and mentoring athletes on the business side of their careers.

Lil Wayne spent considerable time in and around the Colorado Buffaloes football program during Sanders’ time in Boulder. He was one of the first a-list celebrities to visit head coach Deion Sanders after taking over at Colorado. Since that initial visit, Wayne would return several times. Including walking the team out for a game as he performed Sky’s the Limit in front of a capacity crowd at Folsom Field.

For many Shedeur fans, this might seem like a move that he should have made years ago. In 2025, the young quarterback experienced arguably the greatest NFL Draft slide in the league’s history. With an army of fans and several draft analysts projecting him as a top 5 pick, he would fall four more rounds and almost 140 picks from the projected range.

Day three of the 2025 Draft was the highest rated and most viewed day three of any NFL draft. In large part to the anticipation of where he would go. For most of the moment, the slide was inexplicable. Fans viewed the slide as anything from teams not needing quarterbacks to a coordinated effort to embarrass his hall of fame father and ruin Shedeur’s future career.

As time passed, more information came into focus. From the beginning of the draft process, one thing seemed relatively clear. Deion Sanders was having Shedeur Sanders run the Deion draft playbook. There was just one problem. Shedeur is not Deion. Many believe had Shedeur hired an agent then, his draft position would have been much higher.

The primary question currently is why are you making this move now? The Draft concluded over two years ago. He is currently in year two of a four-year contract with the Cleveland Browns. Rookie contracts are slotted and making money has never been a problem for Shedeur. Leading up to his famous draft slide, Sanders made over $30M just between January 2025 and the NFL Draft in April.

Cleveland Browns fans are likely to be on edge today. The 2025 season was riddled with daily Shedeur camp updates, speculation on when he would start, yet he would not see the field until week 11 on November 23. He went on to win three out of seven games, leading all Browns quarterbacks in wins during a bad 5-12 season that saw the end of the Kevin Stefanski run as the head coach.

The belief was that Sanders would get a real opportunity to compete for the starting job in 2026. A viral video by new head coach Todd Monken upon his arrival sparked new confidence in Sanders’ chances. Throughout the off-season camps, all reported numbers favored Sanders, as did the practice footage posted. Leading to an almost league-wide shock when Deshaun Watson was named the starter less than three days after publicly ripping the Cleveland fans.

The problem for Shedeur through the first four weeks was that Watson was winning games. The Cleveland fanbase is starving and has been for decades. Winning changes the conversation. After the week 1 game vs Jacksonville, many fans were ready to see Watson benched. Three consecutive wins later and many fans have warmed up to Watson.

By the time Sanders was drafted, the fanbase had been done with Watson for some time. Shortly after Sanders was drafted, owner Jimmy Haslam even called the Watson experiment a “swing and a miss."

A video clip after the Browns Week 4 win over bitter rival the Pittsburgh Steelers circulated with Sanders uninterested in celebrating with his teammates. More was made of that clip than it should have been, but the questions behind that body language are getting louder considering this new agency.

The internet and social media are almost on fire with Sanders trade rumors. Only a few weeks ago, former Ohio State wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr pulled a similar move and has since been traded from Arizona to Houston. Shedeur Sanders has been referenced in more trade rumors (by fans) than any other player on a rookie deal, maybe ever.

Sanders was rumored as a possible trade piece as early as the same day he was drafted. Sanders has been an NFL player for 18 months. There has not been a single month in 18 when he was not floated as a possible trade target. While Cleveland has never made any mention or movement that would suggest the aim of trading him, the noise is about to get much louder.

Trading Sanders makes about as much sense now as it did in 2025; very little at all. Leaving the team, a QB room of Watson, Dillon Gabriel and Taylen Green. If the Browns were to win even three more games, it would put them out of range of getting a top 5 quarterback in the 2027 Draft without packaging the bulk of their top 100 picks.

The one thing Cleveland cannot do is trade to Sanders only to see him successful elsewhere. Then again, everyone previously thought the one thing they could not do was name Watson the starter in 2026.