Do as the ancient Greeks commanded in their dramatic tragedies: Gaze upon the wreckage in awestruck pity, and with a lesson learned.

And now for the reason America turns to National Review: sports commentary. Yes, I’ll admit I’m a rank amateur when it comes to the world of college football or the NFL Draft, and only casually familiar with the professional product itself — I’m a baseball guy at heart. But over the past 72 hours, I have become a certified Shedeur Sanders Expert; I announce my availability for cable-news live hits on his relationship to the elements of classical Greek myth and tragedy. (As proof of my expertise, I have spelled the name “Shedeur Sanders” correctly.)

In truth, this is the only story I really want to talk about this week. Icarus and Daedalus attended the NFL Draft this year, folks, and the kid didn’t make it off the island. It is rare when we get to see such obviously telegraphed karmic recompense play out in real time before our eyes — at least outside the world of national politics. Let’s enjoy it.

For those unaware: Shedeur Sanders is the son of ex-football star Deion Sanders, former NFL Hall of Fame great. “Neon Deion” looms largest in my childhood Washington, D.C.-area memory as the guy who signed a seven-year deal with the Redskins back in 2000 and retired completely after year one rather than play a day more for the Redskins. Given that the Dan Snyder era had just gotten underway, I tended not to blame Deion too much for that prima donna move — I got jaded about the Snyder-era Redskins so quickly that I didn’t even particularly blame Albert Haynesworth for quitting on the field mid-play — but it cemented his image as a “me first” player whose talents were often overshadowed by his mouth and attitude.

Fast-forward to the next generation: Deion is now a football coach and his son Shedeur, groomed all of his life to follow in his father’s footsteps — not just as a professional football player, but a professional football superstar — is ready for the NFL draft. Sanders has supervised his son’s training and “schooling” — the term is used with the archest of scare-quotes — from birth; he took the coaching gig at the University of Colorado with a specific eye toward having his son play for him under his tutelage and protection . . . and promotion.

Oh, the promotion. The hype. Shedeur Sanders walked into the NFL Draft a legend in his own mind — literally. He built the hype, using daddy’s money to set up a bespoke “draft room,” decked out in anticipatory bling-filled celebration of his inevitable first-round pick. (The shelf of team hats, from which he was going to pick one for the cameras, was a nice touch.) “LEGENDARY” and “PERFECT TIMING” went the slogans written on the wall behind the couch where he was to sit. He appeared conspicuously in public to be photographed wearing an enormous silver chain necklace emblazoned “$$²,” his brand nickname. (The dollar signs look like the letter “s,” get it?)

And then he went undrafted in the first round. And then he went undrafted in the second round. And then he went undrafted in the third round — by which point the first night’s events had concluded and the world was agog. The next day Sanders again went undrafted in the fourth round, which is when social media began pulling out its most brutal jokes.

Finally, the drama reached its gloriously disgraceful denouement in the fifth round: Shedeur Sanders was drafted as the 144th pick by the Cleveland Browns. For those unfamiliar with the reputation of the Browns franchise, this is as if God decided Dante hadn’t added enough circles of hell to the Inferno; Cleveland is a notorious graveyard for football talent, and particularly for quarterbacks, who tend to resemble torn, leaky sacks of flour after a year behind the Browns O-line. (The list of “Famous Cleveland Quarterbacks” makes for even shorter airplane reading than the “Famous Jewish Sports Legends” leaflet.)

Deion Sanders himself once opined, back in 2018, that anyone selected in the draft by the Browns ought to refuse to play. So let’s see what his son does here! Needless to say, the world has sent both Shedeur Sanders and his father a message: Shedeur’s talent — as groomed and shielded and questionably represented by his father — is nowhere near good enough to sustain either his or his father’s ego. Deion Sanders himself was truly a special talent in the game (I had many explain this to me over the weekend), and the only thing that truly ever held him back was an equivalent level of self-regard. Shedeur — as his father’s son — shares an apparently similar level of self-regard. (He refused to attend the NFL combine and apparently flunked every interview with various franchise officials.) He does not share his father’s talent level. NFL teams will tolerate Deion levels of self-promotion and hype only from those with Deion-level talent — and not a second longer once they begin to slip. Shedeur never had a chance.

I pronounce this the most satisfying moment of non-political hubris of 2025. I’ve been pondering the images of the Sanders draft room all weekend long. The giant chain he was wearing. These things will haunt a man who often understands humanity in terms of the classical dramatic archetypes. Did Sanders not have any friends who read Aeschylus or Sophocles and could have warned him? (Alas, knowing the way his father regards the importance of attending class, he was probably only familiar with Euripides and Aristophanes.)

I have rarely encountered a more entertainingly tragicomic real-world tale outside of the world of politics, and since politics is a morass of despair these days, let’s set aside our partisanship to marvel in awe and pity at the groundward plummet of our newest Icarus. It would be nice to hope for a turnaround in Shedeur Sanders’s future, but let’s not kid ourselves: This guy just got drafted as a quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. You’re never going to see him again.

Instead, do as the ancient Greeks commanded in their dramatic tragedies: Gaze upon the wreckage in awestruck pity, and with a lesson learned.