Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders was quarterback Shedeur Sanders’ coach his entire life until the Cleveland Browns selected him in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
However, Deion still can’t help but maintain the football connection he shared with his son for all those years, which is why he stopped by Cleveland’s training camp on Thursday to chat with new Browns head coach Todd Monken. Deion said back in May on “Barbershop with Garrett Bush” that he wanted to tell Monken “a few things about how to get him [Shedeur] going.” While some coaches may have found the chat overbearing, Monken loved his time with the elder Sanders.
“Forget that it was Shedeur’s dad. First of all he did an unbelievable job with Shedeur, great kid. … Obviously an elite football player [Deion]. Hell, baseball player. Then, as a coach and everything he has achieved. That was awesome,” Monken said Thursday. We really almost didn’t get into any football.”
Monken, who coached college football for over a decade before getting his first taste of NFL coaching experience, said he and Deion swapped stories about their coaching and football careers before saying Deion “gave me a little bit of insight” into how Shedeur approaches processing at the quarterback position. Monken said he felt “we’ve been able to see” much of what Sanders was saying, and he told Deion “what a great job Shedeur has done since I’ve been here in terms of his development.”
“It was good. Part-coach, part-father, which is what it should be,” Monken said.
Now, it’s up to Shedeur to earn first-team quarterback reps over Deshaun Watson in the Browns’ training camp competition to be Cleveland’s Week 1 starting quarterback to kick off the 2026 season.
