The Josh Innes Show - Why is Shedeur Sanders So Polarizing?

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

First off, we have an update on the Tennessee/UCLA QB situation. I'm rooting for Tennessee to be successful because I think it's big for the future of college football. Next, USA Today has written a very important piece about why Shedeur Sanders is so disliked. It seems like it's going to be a very predictable story. Let's Read! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Whatever your answer is, Toyota is here to bring you closer to the things that matter to you. Because they matter to us too. Toyota. For what matters most. Well, let's see a couple of football things here. First of all, the headline reads, UCLA quarterback Joey Aguilar plans to transfer to Tennessee. So that means Joey Aguilar is now my favorite quarterback because I really want Tennessee to be successful in letting Nico roll the fuck out.

Like, I'm rooting for that because I think that is good for the overall state of college football. If Tennessee standing their ground and saying, fuck this dude, if they do that and they're successful, that is good for college football. Because I believe that the shit like you're getting out of Nico is bad for

college football and people can spin it and say, Oh, he didn't like the offense. They were in, he can spin it a bit of different ways. Guy wanted more money. He didn't get more money. So he left and then had to settle for less money. That's it. So, uh, and I think that that type of shit is bad for college football. I'm not against dudes getting paid. I'm not against getting dudes getting paid as much as they can. I'm not against dudes having endorsements. I'm not against player

movement. If you want to go from place to place, go. But once you start getting to a point where you've signed a deal with someone and then you want more money and then you hold a team hostage and then leave, I want the team that you held hostage to be successful because I think that overall that is better for college athletics. It is not better for college football for Nico to go and be awesome over at UCLA in Tennessee to lose five games. Because I believe that you need to live in a world where people have at least somewhat equal leverage and equal power in a lot of this kind of shit. And if what we end up seeing is that players start to figure out and start to just realize, hell, we'll just keep leaving because we don't get the money we want and leave teams high and dry and in the lurch in

that situation. It's not good for the overall product. And by the way, dudes transferring three, four times is not good for the overall product. There's a lot of shit that is not good for the overall product. And I think it would be bad for college football if Tennessee loses like six games this year. So I'm really rooting for Joey Aguilar, which fun fact about Joey Aguilar, he had just transferred to UCLA from Appalachian State in the last transfer portal. So in the winter, I guess when is that, December, this dude had already left Appalachian State to go to UCLA, which is a fine move, right? I mean, you go from playing in Appalachian State to playing in the Big Ten, so rock on.

Then they decide, well, we're also going to bring in this guy, and then we don't really need you anymore. To me, I'm fine with the way that plays out, right? You took a chance. You transferred to a place. The school decided that they wanted this other guy who they didn't know was going to be available. He was available.

They go to you, or you go to them and say, I'd like to leave. They say, that's fine. We're sorry that we wasted your time, but this guy came available. He's probably going to be the starting quarterback. And that's that like, that's fine. There is nothing wrong with that situation. That is a healthy situation. That is a good situation. That is a situation that I would celebrate. But when you've signed a deal to be part of a team and then you decide after one year of really not being that good that you want more money, allegedly, that you want more money and they're not going to give you more money and they eventually said, all right, fine, leave, and you leave, I'm rooting for the school because rooting for the school to me means rooting for the

institution, rooting for college football to be successful. Like, I want dudes to make money, get paid, get rich, do whatever, set your family up for years and years. I'm not against that. Dudes should get paid. They should make money. I'm for that. I'm not against it. Let's rock.

But when you sign a deal with someone, you hold them hostage, you want more money, you don't go to the spring game. And Tennessee, but really, you're letting your nuts hang at that point. If you're Tennessee, you're letting your nuts hang. You said, you know what? Fuck this. We're bigger than this. We're bigger than this one dude. Now, might they have caved if that was Hendon Hooker?

Probably. But you would understand why they would have caved if it was Hendon Hooker. Hendon Hooker could have, should have, would have won the Heisman, but he got hurt. Hindenhoeker was drafted, what, in the second or third round in the NFL? Hindenhoeker was explosive in their offense. It's also quite possible they saw Nico and were like, we don't think this guy's really got much of a future anyway, so it's calculated that we let him walk. You don't want to send a message that a player, even though in cases, there are cases where the player is bigger than the school. We get that.

You know, guys that transcend the university, those exist. That's why they fawn over these guys. That's the kind of funny part is these guys fawn over you. They try to pay you to get to come there. They stalk you in high school. And then they want to play this world where nobody's bigger than the university. Well, obviously some people are because you go out and pay them more and you stalk them in high school and middle school to try to get them to come to their school and you tell them how great they are all the time so but either way so I am

rooting for Joey Aguilar I knew I had heard the name before because that sounds like somebody I would have bet on in like a Wednesday football game because I'm a degenerate. So Joey Aguilar, allegedly, I think he's a senior, is now going there and now UCLA. And it's also better for UCLA, assuming that Nico's any good because he's, what, a redshirt freshman, I think? So they've got multiple years left. Of course, he'll probably go somewhere else next year to get more money. So we'll see.

Like the odds of Nico finishing his college career at UCLA are probably very slim, but we will see. All right, let's play some commercials and get into some more football goodness. All right, if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs, you got to check out Pick 6 from DraftKings. When it comes to basketball payouts, DraftKings Pick 6 posterizes the competition, including prize picks. It's a very simple concept.

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First of all, what is the Shadur Sanders controversy? Like, people debate whether or not guys should go in the top two, three. Like, that happens with every fucking player. Like, what makes it a controversy? This headline's interesting to me. What makes it a controversy? What is controversial about people debating whether or not Shader Sanders should be a top pick? It's a quarterback, and we're talking about the most important position on the field.

We're talking about a position that many teams, teams like the Cleveland Browns and others, have screwed up for years and years and years. So, of course, teams with careers on the line are going to do every single thing possible to find out if this is the guy for their team. But anyway, Shadur Sanders controversy dissected experts weigh in. I cannot wait. Story starts. Let's see.

Like NFL scouts who have evaluated Shadur Sanders academics have studied the contrary. Is Shaggy writing this? Like NFL scouts have evaluated. Like, huh? This is weird. Like, what a horribly written story. So they have this making sure I'm right here. Shadur Sanders controversy dissected experts weigh in. And the story starts with,

like NFL scouts who have evaluated Shadur Sanders, oh, I see. My bad. It was weird. I didn't see the comma. Like, well, like NFL scouts have evaluated Shadur Sanders, academics have studied the controversy around him. What controversy is around him?

People debate if he's good or bad. The only controversy was whether or not he should have his fucking number retired at Colorado. That's it. Where it starts, the son of Deion Sanders and quarterback from Colorado is the most polarizing player in the draft that starts Thursday, triggering vastly different opinions. He's a bust. He's NFL ready. He's arrogant. He's a gentleman. Back and forth they go.

The critics and supporters creating a cacophony and opportunity for academics to address race, fame, wealth. Of course they want to. Of course we want this. Of course we want to dissect race and fame and wealth and other things. No, you want to dissect race. That's all you want to do because that's all the media does. And you guys are making it sound like this guy is the first person that's ever been criticized that might be a top draft pick.

Tim Tebow was the most successful college quarterback arguably in fucking history and everybody said he shouldn't have been taken in the first round and the guy got shit on for his religion and his everything the fact he's white he got shit on for everything people get shit on for shit but let's try to go deep let's go deep on this and try to dig deep let's have people who are educated in this scholars to try to tell us what this is what's left to understand is why people react strongly to sanders and what it says about us it doesn't say shit about us it just says that some people like people and they don't do you hear people saying anything about cam ward cam ward is going to be the number one pick tell me this do you hear anybody saying anything about cam ward cam ward is black so

if your argument is well you know there's race oh really maybe they just like you want to get deep let me i don't know what they're going to put in this story yet but i'm going to tell you why and this is what's annoying about people like deon sanders and his kid deon sanders knows the shit that he does is going to be annoying to some people. Some people are going to fucking love it. Some people are going to celebrate it. That's called being polarizing. But if you're going to be polarizing, what you can't do is kind of subtly play victim on shit and say the media is going after you. And like, that's why people are going to dislike you. There's a group of people who don't like people who are arrogant, cocky, and

flashy. That will always be the case. There will always be people who are against dudes bat flipping or dudes doing crazy shit in baseball or football or celebrations. There will always be people like that. And those people are not wrong. You can disagree with them, but they're not bad people. There are people that don't like loud people, don't like obnoxious people, don't like cocky people. And I bet some people probably view Dion's kid

as kind of needlessly cocky for a guy who in college seemingly didn't do much. He was fine. And kind of rides the coattails. There are people who hate what are considered nepo babies. There are people who hated me because my dad happened to have the same job that I went into.

And there are people who fucking hate that. There's a lot of factors. But what they're going to do in this story, my guess, and if I'm wrong, I'll say I'm wrong. Like baby's dad at the end of dirty dancing. I'm wrong. I'll say I'm wrong. I know you're not the one that got Penny in trouble. I will, I will say I'm wrong. The problem is this is just an excuse to write about how people don't like black quarterbacks. And that has been consistently disproven when you've like black quarterbacks. And that is being consistently disproven. When you've got black quarterbacks winning MVPs, black quarterback, a black quarterback's going to be the number one pick.

We've had many first-round black quarterbacks. They've got successful black quarterbacks everywhere. Everybody loves Jaden Daniels. Don't know if you guys knew this. Jaden Daniels, not white. Jaden Daniels, Lamar. And you've seen Mike Vicks of the world obviously that's dated but you get my point like these guys exist everywhere yet they're like we've created this world where it's

just consistently well he's getting treated differently because he's playing quarterback and he's black it's just it's not real it is fictional uh let's see here because by the way the argument then would be that white guys get treated better, right? That would be the argument. The argument would be they get treated differently. You think Josh Allen doesn't get shit on all the time? Josh Allen takes all the shit because he can't beat Patrick Mahomes, who by the way happens to be black. But he also has like a MAGA wife, allegedly.

So it balances out, I i guess but that's what you deal with you think josh allen doesn't get shit on by the world josh allen is like the goat of getting shit on josh allen won the mvp and half the world thinks he's dog shit anyway back and forth they go okay let's see whether his arm is strong enough his feet are quick enough his grasp of defensive formation is firm enough, those issues have been debated and will be dissected more. What's left is to better understand why people react strongly to Sanders and what it says about us. All right.

Breaking the quarterback mold. Cheryl Kuki is a professor at Purdue University who studies the intersection of gender, sports, culture, and media. They pay people to do this at colleges. When talking about Shadur Sanders, she brought up NFL history. I wonder what history Cheryl Kuki is going to bring up. She pointed out that 2023 was the first time the Super Bowl featured two black starting quarterbacks in Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts. Who cares? I mean, we're 100 plus years in the history of the league. I think that's important context for understanding what's happening in the dynamics plan. It's not.

It has nothing to do with that. So like now, like the rule is things aren't really balanced unless both quarterbacks in the Super Bowl are black. One can be black. That's fine. We need to have two. By the way, tell me the last time you had two Mexican quarterbacks in the NFL in the Super Bowl. Tell me the last time you had two Mexican quarterbacks in the NFL in the Super Bowl. Tell me the last time you had two Asian quarterbacks. Like, who gives a fuck? It's wild, man. Like, it's so lazy.

And that person is employed by a university. That person has a job at a university. And her insight is, guys, NFL's been around 100 plus years. And first time ever, we've had two black quarterbacks in the Super Bowl. Cool. Thank you for that. I hope you graduated cum laude. Breaking from the mostly conservative mold of quarterback,

Sanders has flashed his luxury during games. He also sported diamond necklaces. Oh, no. It's similar to his father, Dion, one of the most flamboyant and outspoken players in NFL history. Yes, I forgot. Shadur Sanders is the first person to wear diamond necklaces that has played the quarterback. He's the first flashy quarterback that's ever existed.

Whoa. You know why I think people are annoyed by Shadur Sanders? Because fucking stories like this are written. Maybe that's why. Let's continue. This is fun. Are we having a good is fun we're having a good are we having a good time we're having a good time of shadur sanders style kooky said for a black quarterback to be acting in ways that sort of violate norms and expectations gets policed even more so than

i think if it was a black player in another position or a white quarterback there's some validity to that but I don't think people like view shit or say they just don't like the dude. Like a lot of people don't like his dad. A lot of people don't like him. They're both like, like the big pictures. People just, there are some people who just don't like cocky motherfuckers. And I'm sure there are some that don't like cocky dudes who are black. I'm sure that exists. I'm not naive to that. But is this really worthy of a whole fucking story? She also brought up ESPN's Ryan Clark, who faced backlash after he said race was behind NFL evaluators

anonymously criticizing Sanders for things such as being arrogant and brash. Said Kuki, Ryan Clark making these comments five years ago, it'd be interesting to see what the response would have been at that particular moment when the political landscape was slightly different than it was today. Whatever. Comparisons to Arch Manning. Todd Boyd, the notorious PhD, they love to talk to this guy. Anytime there's some sort of race in sports, like go watch a 30 for 30, there's always Todd Boyd of usc is an expert in sports media and american pop culture and considering the treatment of sanders he contemplated a future situation it'll be interesting to watch how arch manning is covered manning unlike sanders does not have

a famous father uh manning unlike sanders does not have a famous father but he has two famous uncles peyton and eli and a legendary grandfather they comprise the first family of football and may help better understand the dynamic around Shadur so you've already taken something that has not happened yet and you've turned it into a racial situation it hasn't even happened yet this has not happened um and you say he doesn't have a famous father but he has the mannings he's a manning guy you don't think that there are going to be people that are going to be super critical of this dude because of the fact he's associated with the mannings do you think he probably hasn't dealt with that in his life already i'm sure it's like and also this is a

this is not a case of some young black kid that you know came from the streets or something like that this this is a rich black kid that's a rich white kid like like what are we doing like hey guys just gonna let you know let's see what happens in a couple years when Arch Manning comes out and they're not super critical of Arch Manning okay Arch Manning who is expected to start this season spent the last two years primarily on the bench yet Boyd noted Arch Manning has gotten ample favorable attention yes because they haven't watched him suck yet this isn't hard if Archie Manning's care if Arch Manning goes out and sucks he'll get shot dude Texas wanted to run off the quarterback this year Quinn Ewers

and that dude's the best quarterback arguably they've ever had. It's debatable. The reason he's getting that kind of attention is because of his last name, and I have not found anybody who's had a problem with that. Being the son of Deion Sanders has not always translated into favorable attention. Deion moves through the world too easily for some people's liking. See, that's not, I disagree with you, Professor Boyd here. It's a simple thing that there are just people who don't like arrogant people.

And they don't like arrogant people if they're white. They don't like arrogant people if they're black. Mexican, whatever. Doesn't matter. I just think there are people in the world who dislike people who are arrogant, flashy, cocky. It is easy to just say they don't like him because he's black and cocky. I assure you there's a lot of white people that are cocky that these people don't like as well. I'm not telling you that the other side of it doesn't

exist either, where they're just more annoyed by black cocky guys. Very possible, and I'm sure those guys exist out there too. But you've basically turned this into a situation where it's race. It's well, being the son of D on it. No, it's people just don't like arrogant people. Some people don't. Also, Boyd noted that for many years, the narrative for black athletes was they were underprivileged in success and athletics was their singular way out. We have a generation of black athletes now who don't fit that stereotype, and Shadur

certainly doesn't fit that. I think some people might be slow to recognize this change, and there may be others who are potentially put off by it. I don't know about that. Oh, now they're bringing Angel Reese into it. Now, you know how I feel about Angel Reese. Angel Reese talking shit to Kaitlyn Clark is what made Kaitlyn Clark. That's reality, okay?

That made the WNBA shit interesting to some people, whatever. The people who reacted negatively to Angel Reese, a lot of that was racially driven because of the people that I saw reacting to it. People who would not react to women's basketball otherwise reacted to this. And I think because it was a black-white thing, that is why that happened. But now I'm just annoyed by Angel Reese because now past the whole point about her fighting with Caitlin Clark who I don't give a shit about and I was on Angel Reese's side the entire time where I start getting annoyed is when people like Angel Reese start playing victim about everything oh you know people don't like people don't like when cocky people play the

victim because you spend a whole time talking about how badass you are, and then you start blaming other people for shit, and people don't like that. There were a lot of haters of Angel Reese, and everybody loved Caitlyn Clark, and they're both really great players. Everybody didn't love Caitlyn Clark. That's also a fucking myth. You want to see people who love Caitlyn Clark or hate Caitlyn Clark? Go look at any post about Caitlyn Clark on social media, and there will be people that constantly jump in there and tell you about how all the players that came before like it's okay I'm done with this story I've talked too long on this it's just like it is possible like multiple things can be true I'm sure that there are some dudes sitting around right now who hate Deion

Sanders and his kid because they're cocky black dudes there are also probably people who hate Deion Sanders and his kid because they're cocky black dudes. There are also probably people who hate Deion Sanders and his kid because they're arrogant. Like, do you think it's just because they're arrogant, not because they're black? And I also like that the context of these stories, we are left to assume that then every black person on the planet likes Deion and his kid, right? Like that's the idea. The only people who would dislike Deion and his kid have to be either white Hispanic Asian I guarantee you there are black folks that hate Dion Sanders and I guarantee you there are black folks that don't like his kid either but the idea of these stories as we painted around race is that like well if Dion's black and his kid's black therefore all black people love these guys

and it's everybody else of every other group that judges this guy and one thing you're leaving out here is that again the top draft pick the guy who's going to go number one is black like cam ward sitting back why don't you guys want to write about me maybe that's why people are annoyed by deon's kid maybe they're annoyed by deon's kid because he's who you write about yet he there's a chance he's not even a first rounder they got a guy who's going number one played at Florida and you're not talking about that guy the bigger like and I think that's like I think the media does a very good job of creating these big celebrities because they write about them all the time to the point that people get annoyed about them. And then once people start vocally being annoyed by them, then they come back and

write again that, see, and people are very annoyed by Deion Sanders and his kid because you write about them all the time. Burnout is real. Nobody hated Nickelback until Nickelback was the biggest band on the planet. Nobody hated Nickelback in 1999. They hated Nickelback in 2005 and Photograph and all that shit. That's when they hated Nickelback. That's when the Nickelback hate started. Nobody hates anybody who you never hear about because nobody cares. So the media likes to create people so then they can create it, either tear them down or they can come to you and say, you don't like these people and here's why. And I talked to a professor at a university and they told me why well great

you've overexposed someone who the minds of many people has done very little right they'll go to the 13 and 12 record and all that shit and a lot of people just look at that and go by the way and what's going to happen in a couple years if art starts getting praise in the draft the whole storyline is going to be that he's a nepo baby. Oh, he's only getting this because he's rich. I guarantee the same people who will be saying that today are not saying that about Deion Sanders and his kid. Although his kid is an ultimate nepo baby. Again, it's all, people all base shit on the race of the person being praised. And like, that's just how this country works. We're a shithole. We are a terrible shithole where we say everything shouldn't

be about race. And then literally every single argument is based on race because it's lazy and easy and it's regressive because you don't regressive means when you're regressive and you don't move forward, you can sit there and continue to bitch about how things need to be moving forward. And then you're able to like lure people into your little political game and then it's a vicious circle and it never stops we are lazy and this is an example of that you can't just dislike someone you have to dislike someone because obviously they're black or obviously they're white or obviously they're this and this whole time like asian folks just sit around on the back and be like does anybody know we're here like nobody hates us nobody we're just here okay fine we're just doing our job because the whole world this whole country just sit around in the back and be like, does anybody know we're here? Like nobody hates us. Nobody. We're just here. Okay, fine.

We're just doing our job because the whole world, this whole country just spins around the, the war between black and white. It's tiring. And we suck if we are being honest. Right. All right. More to come.