By Dylan Gwinn
Copyright breitbart
Most of the football-watching world reacted with shock and concern after Shedeur Sanders elected to mime his answers to reporters’ questions after finding out he would not be the starter after the Browns’ most recent quarterback shakeup.
His father had a different reaction.
On Wednesday, the Browns announced they were benching starter Joe Flacco and rolling with rookie Dillon Gabriel as QB1 from here on out—Sanders’ status as QB3 remained unchanged.
After the announcement, reporters inquired about Sanders’ role on the team. Sanders chose to answer in silence.
While that reaction led most to question Sanders’s maturity at best and his sanity at worst, his father, Deion, had a different response.
Following a series of laughing emojis, the elder Sanders wrote, “Good 1 son. You did that.”
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that, according to team sources, Sanders’ miming act was a response to criticism levied against him by former NFL coach Rex Ryan on Monday morning’s edition of Get Up.
“This kid runs his mouth like, ‘I got could be a starting quarterback,’ with his arms crossed like this. Get your ass in the front row and study and do all that. If I know, the whole league knows,” Ryan said. “Quit being an embarrassment that way. You got the talent to be a quarterback. You should be embarrassed that you’re not the quarterback now.”
On one level, it’s shocking that Deion Sanders would give public approval to his son’s extremely immature antics on a day that should have served as a serious wake-up call, that he did not have the confidence of his head coaches, as evidnced by the fact that Sanders was not only passed over as the starter, but wasn’t even selected as the backup.
On another level, it’s not all that surprising. After all, how could Sanders have believed that miming and acting like an idiot was a good idea, unless he’d been told his whole life that everything he did was great? Or, perhaps more charitably, that paying attention to media and image is just as important, if not more important, than handling your business on the field?
Either way, this apple did not fall far from the tree. There are numerous benefits to being the son of Deion Sanders; receiving coaching in football is one of them. Getting good coaching on being accountable and acting like a grown-up does not appear to be one of them.
