Report: Deion Sanders has ‘strong interest’ in coaching the Raiders
Jan 11, 2025, 12:30 PM
CU Buffs head coach Deion Sanders might be looking to make the leap to the NFL, specifically the Las Vegas Raiders.
According to a story from the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Saturday, Coach Prime “has a very strong interest in the job.” Vincent Bonsignore, the person who wrote the article, declined to name his source, which isn’t uncommon. Bonsignore said he spoke with a person who has “knowledge of the situation.”
It takes two to tango, so it’s unclear if the Raiders have interest in Sanders or if this is simply a test balloon from his camp. Las Vegas is currently scheduled to interview Ben Johnson, Aaron Glenn, Steve Spagnuolo, Pete Carroll, Robert Saleh and others for their head-coaching position. They fired Antonio Pierce earlier this week.
On Thursday, Denver Sports hosts Cecil Lammey and Josh Dover speculated Coach Prime could head to the desert, with ESPN’s Louis Riddick as the next general manager. The Raiders fired GM Tom Telesco this week as well.
And complicating matters is Sanders was on Good Morning America on Wednesday and said he’d only consider leaving CU for the NFL if he could coach his “sons.” Both Shedeur Sanders and Shilo Sanders played for the Buffs the last two years and will be moving on.
Shedeur is an excellent quarterback and a likely top-5 pick in April’s NFL Draft, potentially as high as No. 1 overall. It remains to be seen if Shilo has a future in the league.
Las Vegas has the No. 6 pick in the draft, so they’d probably have to move up to select Shedeur or tell the five teams in front of them he won’t play for anyone else besides the Raiders, especially if dad is the head coach.
And the final wrinkle in all of this is that Tom Brady is a part-owner of the Raiders. He has a long relationship with the Sanders family and is expected to be heavily involved in the decision to hire the next coach in Vegas.
All of a sudden, there appears to be some smoke around Deion Sanders to the Raiders. He’s had two great years in Boulder and said he wants to continue coaching at Colorado.
We’ll see if that actually happens.
