If the Giants draft Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders in the NFL Draft’s first round this April, his father, Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, would immediately become a candidate to be the Giants’ next head coach.
It’s a simple connecting of dots:
Brian Daboll is on borrowed time entering his fourth Giants season, with John Mara asking him to give up offensive play-calling while Mara was simultaneously praising GM Joe Schoen’s process coming off a 3-14 season.
And Deion Sanders, although he continuously stresses his love for coaching the Colorado Buffaloes, said on ‘Good Morning America’ that “the only way I would consider [going to the NFL] is to coach my sons,” the quarterback Shedeur and defensive back Shilo Sanders.
“Prime Time” also was publicly discussed as an early candidate to fill the Dallas Cowboys’ vacancy after a phone call with owner Jerry Jones, which Jones now says was “just a conversation.”
And Sanders reportedly had “a very strong interest” in the Raiders’ head coaching opening, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal, before Vegas clarified they intended to go in a different direction.
Schoen’s Tuesday comments about Shedeur Sanders during an interview at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., meanwhile, included two references by the Giants GM to Sanders’ father, Deion.
“He’s a great kid,” Schoen told reporters, per The Athletic. “Really good personality. Football smart. Dad’s a football coach. It’s a little bit cliche, but he checks all the boxes of [having] a dad that’s a football coach and the passion that he approaches the game with.
“It was good getting the meeting,” Schoen added. “He’s had a really good career in Colorado, and obviously [we] look forward to getting to know all those guys the rest of the process.”
The buyout on Deion Sanders’ Colorado contract reportedly is $8 million right now but drops to $5 million after Dec. 31, 2025, per USAToday.
If Mara wants to silence noise about his willingness to spend — like ESPN’s report that Mara “has railed against the NFL for making sure that the league doesn’t have this dead money in coaches’ salaries” — buying out Sanders’ contract with one year remaining on Daboll’s would make a good case.
Daboll is still the Giants’ head coach, of course. And he has complained about the absence of adequate quarterback play on his roster.
The Giants scapegoated, shut down and cut Daniel Jones this past season. And when Drew Lock had his best game to beat the Indianapolis Colts in Week 17, Daboll went public with his frustration.
Daboll said “you need good quarterback play” and a team has a chance to win every game “if you get good quarterback play.” He said rookies Malik Nabers and Tyrone Tracy Jr. had impressive years “in a season like this with a variety of quarterbacks.”
Drafting Shedeur Sanders, then, would give Daboll his wish: the desire to build a better present and future at the sport’s most important position.
It would be an opportunity for Daboll to cool down his hot seat simply by showing results.
Sanders producing more points and wins would make life easier on everybody, no one more so than the embattled head coach who shares a .363 winning percentage with Schoen.
The pressure would also increase on Daboll simultaneously, though, to show those results immediately or face the consequences.
The Giants ranked 30th in the NFL in scoring in 2023 (15.6 points per game) and then slipped to 31st in 2024 (16.1 points per game) when Daboll took over play calling full-time.
So if Daboll’s offense sputtered again early with Shedeur Sanders under center, Daboll probably wouldn’t even last the full season — even if Schoen survived.
It would still be too early for the Giants to make a final judgment on Sanders, however, if he and the Giants started slowly out of the gate in his rookie year.
So the next step would be to find a coach better at creating solutions and culture than Daboll has been.
Maybe Schoen would sell internally that the Giants just need the right coach, just like Daboll has sold publicly that they just need the right quarterback.
That scenario would lead straight to Deion Sanders as a candidate to possibly revitalize the Giants and properly support his son, Shedeur.
He knows the league. He has revitalized a college program. He knows his son best.
And if Shedeur Sanders is the Giants’ No. 3 overall pick, there will be nothing more important than getting the best football leadership out of him.
So if hiring his accomplished father becomes the best way to do that, then so be it.
