The NFL draft is a pressure cooker—dreams made or broken in a single phone call. For Shedeur Sanders, the University of Colorado quarterback and son of NFL legend Deion Sanders, April 25, 2025, was supposed to be a night of anticipation. Instead, it turned into a bizarre sideshow when a prank call crashed his draft watch party, leaving the young star and his team reeling.
Sanders, a Heisman contender with a rocket arm, was holed up with family, friends, and camera crews in Boulder, waiting for the call that could launch his pro career. The draft’s first round was winding down, and tension was thick. Then, his phone rang. The voice on the other end, calm and official, claimed to be from the New Orleans Saints. They’d selected him, the caller said—or so it seemed. Cameras swarmed, capturing the moment. Smiles broke out. But the call wasn’t from the Saints. It was a fake, a cruel stunt pulled by college students who’d somehow gotten hold of Sanders’ private number.
The fallout was immediate. Sanders, visibly shaken, realized the truth mid-celebration. The room deflated. The Saints, who held the 45th pick in the second round, hadn’t called. No NFL team had. The pranksters, later identified as students from a rival school, had posed as team executives, stringing Sanders along with talk of “waiting a little longer” for a draft slot. The call, recorded by someone in the room, leaked online within hours, spreading like wildfire across sports blogs and newsrooms.
By April 26, the NFL was on the case. League officials, already under scrutiny for draft security, launched an investigation into how Sanders’ draft-day phone number—a line supposedly shared only with NFL executives—was compromised. The number, set up specifically for the draft, was meant to be ironclad. Sources close to the league confirmed the students exploited a breach, though details on how they pulled it off remain under wraps. The NFL issued a statement on April 27, vowing to “pursue appropriate action” against those responsible, hinting at potential legal consequences.
Sanders, for his part, stayed quiet. His camp released a brief statement on April 26, calling the prank “disrespectful” and “disruptive,” but the quarterback himself avoided the spotlight. Deion Sanders, never one to mince words, told reporters outside his Jackson State office that the league needed to “lock this down” to protect players. The incident sparked a broader debate about draft-day vulnerabilities, with some analysts questioning why the NFL hadn’t tightened its communication protocols after similar, smaller incidents in past years.
The prank didn’t just sting Sanders—it rattled the draft’s carefully choreographed machine. Teams rely on secure lines to relay picks in real time. A breach like this, however minor, exposed cracks in the system. By April 28, the NFL had quietly rolled out new encryption measures for draft communications, though officials declined to share specifics.
Sanders wasn’t drafted in the first round. His stock, projected as a late-first or early-second pick, remained intact, but the prank left a mark. The students behind it face possible charges, pending the NFL’s probe. The league’s security team is working with federal authorities to trace the call’s origin. The Saints, caught in the crossfire, clarified they had no contact with Sanders during the draft’s first night.