Oakland (Special to ZennieReport.com) – Every star college quarterback coming into the NFL has a “chip” on his shoulder. These athletes believe they’re entitled to be selected number one. USC QB Matt Leinart was like that, and sulked when he dropped 10 spots to Arizona at the 2006 NFL Draft. This NFL Vlogger Zennie Abraham was there in 2006 and first to cover an NFL Draft onsite with a YouTube Channel.
Browns QB Shedeur Sanders is just the latest in a long line of such men. Eli Manning being a great example because he did not want to play for a losing NFL team. No one lost their minds over those stated desires except Chargers fans.
But today, we in America have a giant set of people who identify themselves as MAGA aka rabid President Trump fans on their social media accounts. So, when President Trump sounded a call via Truth Social for the NFL Draft-style abuse Sanders was getting to stop, it stopped, and Shedeur Sanders was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the middle of the fifth round. That’s all the evidence one needs to see what was really going on. But there’s more. One may ask “why Cleveland” There was nothing written in stone that the Cleveland Browns had to take him. But consider two things.
First, Browns Owner Jimmy Haslem and his wife Dee are described as “a clan at the apex of commerce, professional sports, and Republican politics – have dumped more than $6.5 million into American elections during this two-year political cycle alone” and that’s not from me, that’s from Cleveland.com, the news publication also called The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Second, the Cleveland Browns held the second pick in the NFL Draft and were expected to take Colorado Quarterback Shedeur Sanders or the Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter at number two. Rather than do that, the Browns took a trade offer to move down to the Jaguars spot at five and take Mason Graham, the Michigan defensive tackle. That actions, alone, made the Browns a high profile media target regarding passing on Hunter (after making positive noise about him) and giving up the number two position in the draft for an arguably weak haul of draft picks.
What happened was the political head-fake was on, a scheme of obvious collusion among NFL Coaches and general managers , aided by some among the NFL media, against NIL-wealthy millionaire Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders, including the Browns brain-trust, that gained more attention as Sanders dropped during the 2025 NFL Draft.
And all because Shedeur Sanders was already a wealthy African American college football player of the 21st Century, unlike what many of the college and NFL coaches were used too; an African American college football player from a poor family who’s school gridiron performance made his college richer, but not him. In other words a modern slave given only the promise of an education and nothing else.
Now, those days are over and Shedeur Sanders, Livvy Dunne, and Carson Beck and Arch Manning should thank UCLA’s star basketball player Ed O’Bannon for challenging the NCAA.
The trouble is the head coaches and GMs collectively did not know that Seventy-eight percent of Republicans rated Deion Sanders favorably – more than any other coach – compared to 75% of Democrats according to a poll conducted by Good Authority in 2023. And in 2017, Deion Sanders partnered with Republican donors The Koch Brothers for a multi-state anti-poverty program.
So, the slide of Deion Sanders son in the 2025 NFL Draft got the attention of sports fan President Trump, whos’ always eager to use a high-profile situation to score political points, and so Trump stepped in and send the message out that had to have been received by NFL Commissioner and famous republican Roger Goodell and Trump’s giant Republican Donor friend Browns Owner Jimmy Haslem, who both apparently put an end to Shadeur Sanders slide by instructing Haslem’s employees General Manager Andrew Berry and Head Coach Kevin Stefanski to move to get him as soon as possible.
That really explains why neither Berry nor Stefanski was enthusiastic about taking Shedeur Sanders: their boss Haslam, the major Republican donor and Trump friend, forced them to do something they did not want to do. And the pre-Sanders-pick quiet speaking between Stefanski and Berry, then Berry pointing to his own chest as if to say “I got this” after listening to what appeared to be the coaches objections are just as telling as the luke-warm response after Shedeur was announced. Thus the NFL Draft-style high-tech-lynching aka “drop” of Shedeur Sanders that came to dominate the 2025 NFL Draft like no other topic in history – something the hyper-politically-sensitive NFL Owners and NFL Commissioner wanted no part of. So once President Trump wrote the following in Truth Social, the Browns Owner Haslam stopped it:
What is wrong with NFL owners, are they STUPID? Deion Sanders was a great college football player, and was even greater in the NFL. He’s also a very good coach, streetwise and smart! Therefore, Shedeur, his quarterback son, has PHENOMENAL GENES, and is all set for Greatness. He should be “picked” IMMEDIATELY by a team that wants to WIN. Good luck Shedeur, and say hello to your wonderful father!
And Just What Is A High-Tech Lynching, Anyway?
On October 11, 1991, then-Judge Clarence Thomas made the following statement before the Senate Confirmation committee during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Here is his full statement:
Senator, I would like to start by saying unequivocally, uncategorically, that I deny each and every single allegation against me today that suggested in any way that I had conversations of a sexual nature or about pornographic material with Anita Hill, that I ever attempted to date her, that I ever had any personal sexual interest in her, or that I in any way ever harassed her.
A second, and I think more important point. I think that this today is a travesty. I think that it is disgusting. I think that this hearing should never occur in America. This is a case in which this sleaze, this dirt, was searched for by staffers of members of this committee, was then leaked to the media, and this committee and this body validated it and displayed it at prime time over our entire nation. How would any member on this committee, any person in this room, or any person in this country, would like sleaze said about him or her in this fashion? Or this dirt dredged up and this gossip and these lies displayed in this manner? How would any person like it?
The Supreme Court is not worth it. No job is worth it. I am not here for that. I am here for my name, my family, my life, and my integrity. I think something is dreadfully wrong with this country when any person, any person in this free country would be subjected to this.
This is not a closed room. There was an FBI investigation. This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It’s a national disgrace.
And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I’m concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. — U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree.
What happened to Clarence Thomas is not unusual in America. Shedeur Sanders is the latest in a long line of black Americans who have been persecuted for being gifted and unconventional in some way that placed them outside what society considered where and what they should be. It happened to me at the City of Oakland a number of times from when I was an intern, to while I was trying to bring the 2005 Super Bowl to Oakland in 2000. When I was an intern with the economic development department, Gene Morris, a colleague and urban economic analyst who focused on small business loans, said “Man, you got three problems: you’re young gifted and black”.
Fast-forward to April 24th, 2025, and Shedeur Sanders, star quarterback of the Colorado Buffaloes received the same treatment as Justice Thomas, or for that matter, me. And in many ways it was worse because it cost the young man an estimated $40 million. And for what? Well, look at the many comments about Deion Sanders’ son.
Words like brash, arrogant, proud, entitled, and more have been tossed out about Shedeur. But they could certainly apply to Joe Burrow, Johnny Manziel, Eli Manning, Ryan Leaf, the aforementioned Matt Leinart, and many more NFL-bound college quarterbacks in history.
But when the quarterback is black, super-talented, and NFL-bound, there’s always something put out about them that’s not true. Cam Newton, Jameis Winston (read here at ZennieReport), and Deshaun Watson come to mind, most notably. In the past, NFL Hall of Fame Warren Moon was ignored by the NFL coming out of Washington, and had to get a job in Canada. We need to stop these high-tech lynchings. Being black, smart, and talented should not be something a person is pressured to hide, or persecuted for being, but encouraged to be.