Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders made his long-awaited NFL debut on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens. It was a disaster by any measuring stick.
Fortunately, his mom, Pilar Sanders, strongly defended her son by calling out the Browns’ coaching staff on social media in the middle of the game.
First, the ugly on-field performance. Sanders, who had one of the most spectacular falls from grace in this past NFL draft, viewing himself as a first-rounder only to find out league execs barely wanted him in the fifth round, could barely complete a pass. To his own teammates, anyway.
The son of Hall of Famer Deion Sanders entered the game in the third quarter after starting QB Dillon Gabriel suffered a concussion on a big hit. He promptly completed just 4 of 16 passes for 47 yards and an interception. He also managed to have a fumble, though the Browns recovered.
The Ravens rallied in the fourth quarter to secure a 23-16 victory.
Shedeur Sanders’ mom rips the coaching staff
Smack dab in the middle of Shedeur’s debut, Pilar Sanders, his mother, voiced her frustration with the Browns’ coaching staff on Instagram. She posted a video from the stadium with a spicy little caption.
“Do your thang! Work with what you’ve got!” she wrote. “NFL DEBUT! Never any first round reps – Never heard of 😂🤣 this is wild to say the least.”
“Do what you gotta do, baby,” she added in the video itself.
NFL reporter Josina Anderson echoed Pilar’s sentiment on X, noting Sanders had “hardly any first-team reps this season” and criticizing the preparation under head coach Kevin Stefanski.
To be fair, Shedeur spent most of this season as the fourth-string quarterback on the Browns’ depth chart. He has only moved up recently due to trades and injuries.
Fourth-string talent doesn’t often get first-team reps, Ms. Sanders.
Let's not have a preparation/reps/ head coach who believes you are the starter– comparison conversation right now. https://t.co/TttrNEi0bm
— JosinaAnderson (@JosinaAnderson) November 16, 2025
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Momma bear mode
This isn’t the first time that Momma Sanders has heroically come to the rescue of her son, Shedeur. She’s clearly in Mama Bear mode when it comes to the former college football star.
Last month, she went borderline apoplectic when former New York Jets head coach and foot aficionado, Rex Ryan, dared to criticize Shedeur for the kind of nonsense that led to him dropping precipitously in the draft. Ryan suggested that Sanders was talking too much and not putting in the work to become a starter.
You know, the kind of work makes the coaching staff take you seriously and gets you first-team reps.
“This kid talks, and he runs his mouth. Like he said, ‘I can be a starting quarterback’ with his arms crossed like this. Get your a– in the front row and study and do all that. If I know, the whole league knows,” Ryan said during an appearance on ESPN’s Get Up.
“Quit being an embarrassment that way. You’ve got the talent to be the quarterback, you should be. You should be embarrassed that you’re not the quarterback now.”
Rex Ryan on Shedeur Sanders: "This kid talks and he runs his mouth. Like he said, 'I can be a starting quarterback' with his arms crossed like this. Get your ass in the front row and study and do all that. If I know, the whole league knows. Quit being an embarrassment that way.… pic.twitter.com/onAE0caWKu
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 29, 2025
Talking too much must be a family trait. Because Pilar couldn’t help but fire back by calling Ryan “evil.”
“To young Athletes and Football fans… This is what impotent, cancerous, envious energy looks like,” she wrote on social media. “This type of Evil goes waaay back – you can cut it with a knife – embedded in blood and bones, seeping through all of the rotting worm holes it has.”
We’re sure he’s envious of a 4-for-16-level quarterback.