Shedeur Sanders had been putting in the work all spring for the Cleveland Browns. The quarterback competition with Deshaun Watson was real enough that it hadn’t settled heading into training camp. Then, ESPN Cleveland’s Tony Rizzo went on The Really Big Show on June 22nd, and dropped cold water on everything with a trade buzz – “There are talks, ongoing calls about the availability of Shedeur Sanders,” he said.

After everything Sanders went through last season, 2x Super Bowl champ LeSean ‘Shady’ McCoy believes a trade might be the best thing for the second-year quarterback.

“This is the best news I heard all day,” McCoy declared on the Speakeasy podcast. “Let Shedeur go! He’s a starter. His stardom ceiling is to the roof. The guy is that good.

“He’s in Cleveland, and they don’t win, and they don’t do much good things in football,” Shady went on. “And you then you bring in Deshaun Watson – a guy that’s owed all this money, you’re not going to see Shedeur like we want to. Let him go to a team where he’s running the show. I think a fresh start for him cause he’s still young.”

Deshaun Watson came into the offseason rusty – not having played a game since October 2024. Sanders, a fifth-round pick who didn’t even get first-team reps last season, pushed hard enough that the coaches couldn’t help but praise his growth.

If you talk about production, critics would point to 10 interceptions and 23 sacks in his eight games. But Sanders was running for his life behind one of the worst offensive lines in the league, and he kept being overlooked by former head coach Kevin Stefanski until Dillon Gabriel went down. He still made it work… in parts.

Sanders went 3-4 as a starter, and closed the season with back-to-back wins over the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals. He threw for 1,400 yards and added 169 rushing yards. In Week 12 against the Las Vegas Raiders, Sanders drilled a 52-yarder to Isiah Bond while facing a Cover 0 blitz. That throw alone was so good that it left DE Myles Garrett wide-eyed.

“If you put Shedeur Sanders on a real team, get him some real coaching and some support behind him, who knows?” McCoy said. “Cause the last I know, when he had that support and that chance, he did great things at Jackson State and Colorado.”

That college case is hard to dismiss. At Jackson State, Sanders set the single-season completion percentage record at 70.5%. In Colorado in 2024, he threw for 4,134 yards and 37 touchdowns in Deion ‘Coach Prime’ Sanders’ system. These were the numbers that got him labeled as a top draft prospect before the pre-draft narratives slid him down to 144th overall.

Now, former Browns linebacker Emmanuel Acho, on the Speakeasy podcast, wasn’t convinced by McCoy’s take. But when he pushed back with “everybody’s good in college,” McCoy already had an answer ready.

“Okay, well, give him a shot. Let’s find out,” McCoy challenged. “Let’s find out if what I’m saying is true, that all guys are good in college, but the pros [are] different. Let’s find out.”

As for Shedeur Sanders’ future, the market is already moving. Dallas Cowboys legend Dez Bryant has publicly urged the New Orleans Saints to trade for Sanders, saying he’s “a franchise QB” who needs to get out of Cleveland. Other potential landing spots include the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins.

LeSean McCoy’s argument is that Shedeur Sanders never got the chance to compete for a starting role when he should have. And after all the work Sanders has done this offseason, if the Browns really want to part ways with him, he’s a package teams will definitely call about, even if it’s for a depth addition. Sanders is under contract through 2028 at just a little over $1M annually – cost-controlled, young, available, and still very much hungry to prove himself right.