Deion Sanders Says Son Shedeur ‘Went Through Hell' in Rookie Season With Browns

Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders clearly has his family's unconditional support.

Two weeks after his brother, Shilo Sanders, went after a reporter for speculating that Shedeur, 24, might not be the Browns' starting quarterback for the 2026-27 season, his father, NFL legend Deion Sanders, defended his son after a rough first campaign.

"When he takes off his shirt, I see the scars on his back that he's been through hell, but he's made it through hell," Deion, 58, said in an interview with "The Barbershop" on Thursday, May 14. "He kept going and he matured, not like he was a child, but he matured spiritually."

Shedeur played in eight games as a rookie in 2025, completing 120 passes but throwing for 10 interceptions compared to seven touchdowns.

Deion added that he heard the criticism around Shedeur, particularly before the 2025 NFL Draft, when rumors circulated that he was unprepared for meetings with teams or came to those meetings with his headphones on.

"A lot of things that was said … it bothered me, but it didn't bother him," Deion said. "He just wanted the opportunity to get on the grass and do his thing."

Shilo, 26, sparked controversy in late April when he told Browns beat writer Mary Kay Cabot to "go make a sandwich" after she suggested Deshaun Watson could win the starting job over Shedeur. He doubled down on a Twitch stream the next day.

"This is to Mary Kay: If you're gonna be a reporter, be a reporter and report facts," he said. "Whenever you have your opinion, and your opinion is always something hateful to Shedeur, then it makes it seem like it's something weird, like, it's an agenda you have going on."

Shilo continued, "There is plenty of women in this field that take this serious and take reporting on football serious and actually do homework and study the game and get the statistics right and get the news right. But with you, it's so much emotion that I don't want you to make women look bad when it comes to reporting because you don't have the will to actually want to report real things that are going on."

Shedeur, for his part, hasn't reacted much to the outside noise. After his first win as a starting quarterback in November, he told reporters that he knows he has his haters and it doesn't bother him.

"Nobody cares if this was one week of prep," he said. "Who cares? So, a lot of people want to see me fail – it ain't gonna happen. It ain't gonna happen."

Sanders continued, "Everybody starts different places. Like I said, just because I didn't get the summer reps just because I wasn't in the best situation for me to be prepared to go out there and execute from a summer standpoint – that's how life is. Everybody's not in the best situation. But it's no excuse. Gotta go out there and perform. There's no choice. There's no question."

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This story was originally published May 15, 2026 at 10:48 AM.