The NFL draft coverage took a wild turn this year as Shedeur Sanders tumbled through round after round, leaving TV analysts stumped. Mel Kiper Jr., the longest-serving NFL Draft analyst in the game, completely lost his cool by the time it reached the fifth round.
As Kiper rampaged on live TV, it was Rece Davis who checked him, and the debate went viral on social media.
Davis Opens Up on Online Spat With Kiper Over Sanders’ Draft Slide
Kiper had graded Sanders as the fifth-best player in his overall draft rankings. Notably, he was the highest-ranked quarterback, one spot ahead of Cam Ward at six. Even Daniel Jeremiah had him ranked in the top twenty, so Kiper was far from alone in his overall grade.
Nobody had predicted Shedeur Sanders would get out of the first round, let alone the entirety of night one and night two of the draft. Rich Eisen was baffled by the fallout, and Joel Klatt didn’t have an answer for it either.
It was a complex issue to cover live on the NFL draft coverage, and in the fifth round, Mel Kiper had had enough. Initially, Louis Riddick was trying to reason what had caused the Colorado quarterback to free-fall in the draft. Kiper couldn’t hold his tongue, jumping in multiple times before Rece Davis stepped in to help.
Davis said whatever caused the drop is now in the rear-view mirror, before elaborating by saying: “This was the result. Now he (Sanders) has an opportunity to answer it. But I think yelling at the NFL about it is not productive.”
Mel Kiper then promptly condemned the NFL as ‘clueless’ when evaluating quarterbacks for the last 50 years, which seemed odd. In the days that followed, the Sanders story and Kiper’s ensuing monologue became a hot topic in the media. Davis finally had a chance to speak on the situation on Thursday:
“I thought that, as a group, the part that we were overlooking was that the most likely explanation for something is probably correct. We don’t know for sure, but it was almost certain at that point in the draft that something had happened in the pre-draft process involving Shedeur Sanders that was keeping teams from taking him.”
Rece Davis on his viral NFL Draft spat with Mel Kiper Jr. regarding Shedeur Sanders' draft slide:
"It was almost certain at that point in the draft that something had happened in the pre-draft process involving Shedeur Sanders that was keeping teams from taking him."@dandakich… pic.twitter.com/DCXDGKNdHa
— OutKick (@Outkick) May 1, 2025
Davis explained that he and Kiper never had an issue or a bad word to say; it was just part of the job to discuss a complex matter and to do so in real time.
Kiper Adamant Sanders Is a Franchise Quarterback
Mel Kiper remained adamant that Sanders was being completely overlooked and the NFL had it wrong. Others have confirmed that NFL teams had scratched the quarterback off of their boards entirely after a poor pre-draft process.
It wouldn’t be the first time that Kiper has gone all in on a quarterback prospect he truly believed in. In 2010, he was so convinced that Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen was going to be a star in the NFL, he suggested he’d retire if it didn’t pan out that way. Clausen threw seven career touchdowns and fourteen interceptions, and that was it.
Kiper also had Patrick Mahomes ranked fifth in the QB class of 2017, behind Mitchell Trubisky, DeShone Kizer, Deshaun Watson and Luke Falk.
He’s been instrumental in the NFL draft becoming the spectacle it is today, but even as the most prominent analyst surrounding the event, he hasn’t always been right.
We’ll have to wait to see the final verdict on Shedeur Sanders, who now has a quarterback battle to contend with in Cleveland.