Most years, I couldn’t tell you who the New York Jets drafted in the second round, much less the fifth. I don’t keep up with which Arkansas Razorback was drafted unless they were a first-round pick. I don’t watch the NFL Draft, but I will half-way follow the selections during round one. After that, it’s not even worth a glance at my phone to see who went where.

This year, however, I was heavily (needlessly) invested in the Shedeur Sanders’ storyline. The son of the legendary DB (now head coach) Deion Sanders, his son Shedeur played quarterback for his father at the University of Colorado, and from the moment the Sanders family arrived in Boulder, they made it known that Shadeur was the starting QB, without any competition allowed, and that Shadeur was the NFL’s next great first-round draft pick. So confident was Deion that he publically declared he would have a say in where his son was drafted, and would counsel him to tell less-desirable teams not to bother taking him because he wouldn’t play for them. In Deion’s mind, he and Shadeur held all the cards. Shadeur was, after all, the best QB in this year’s draft class, and could therefore stand in a position to make demands.

When it came time for the NFL Draft, the Sanders family constructed an elaborate draft “war room” with twenty different NFL team hats on display (presumably the twenty out of thirty-two NFL teams that Deion and his son would accept), and the word LEGENDARY printed in bold letters around the room.

Then came the draft, and with the first pick, the Tennessee Titans selected quarterback… Cam Ward, from Miami.

Several selections followed, but no other quarterbacks were taken until late in the first round, when the NY Giants made a trade with Houston to get the 25th pick. They used it to select quarterback… Jaxson Dart, from Ole Miss. A third quarterback was taken in the second round, and a fourth was drafted in the third round. Neither of them were named Sanders. No quarterback was taken in the fourth round, and by that point, every talking head on ESPN and the NFL Network was incredulous, while the normal fans watching at home and commenting online were openly speculating if Sanders would go entirely undrafted.

Then, in the fifth round, the Cleveland Browns—who had already drafted a quarterback in that class—picked Shedeur Sanders, presumably because his stock had fallen so far, they were able to get him for a steal. Over the course of a weekend Sanders went from not just quietly believing himself to be, but loudly and PROUDly touting himself as the number one pick, to being the 144th pick out of 257 (the exact middle of the draft). He went from believing himself to be worth a “first overall” contract valued at almost 50 million to a “middle of the fifth round” contract, worth only(!) about 5 million dollars. That’s a lot of money for a quarterback that will probably never see the field in any meaningful capacity, but it’s a literal decimation of the number he believed he was worth when the draft began.

FINALLY, THE SPIRITUAL APPLICATION BEGINS HERE…

I remember a good friend of mine in High School who was a very “good” but not very “great” basketball player, despite how much he loved to run his mouth and claim his greatness: The head coach once said of him: “If I could buy him for what he was actually worth and sell him for what he thought he was worth, I’d be a millionaire.” I thought of that as I watched Sanders’ draft ranking plummet over the course of the past weekend.

Solomon said:

When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom

(Proverbs 11:2).

There’s no question that Shedeur and his father were humbled over the weekend, but to his credit, the only comments that Shedeur made over the course of the draft was “God has a plan.” After he was finally picked, he put out a message simply saying: “Thank you God.” Did he learn the lesson Solomon taught so long ago? Did he appreciate, the hard way, that God’s “plan” for arrogant boasters is that they be humbled? I hope so. It seems like it, in any case. His words now are humble, and his words are all I have to go by. Of course, had his words before the draft not been so proud, cocky, and full of hubris, his fall to the fifth round certainly would have garnered sympathy. Instead, he was the object of ridicule by people eager to see a prideful person come to shame. But, again, to his credit, he did not address his critics, but instead gave thanks to the Lord that he was drafted at all. Had that been his attitude from the start, no one would be talking about him today (for all the wrong reasons).

Maybe that can be a lesson to the rest of us, who aren’t even good enough to be drafted at all, even by the Browns.

~Matthew