- Sanders shared an embrace with his son on the field before the game against the Las Vegas Raiders.
- Deion Sanders had been undecided about attending due to his Colorado football team’s schedule and him not wanting to be a distraction
- Family considerations ultimately led Sanders to make the trip to support his son in person.
Colorado football coach Deion Sanders made a special trip to Las Vegas on Sunday to watch his son Shedeur make his debut as starting quarterback of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns.
And what a time it was for them. Cleveland beat the Las Vegas Raiders, 24-10. Shedeur completed 11 of 20 passes for 209 yards and one touchdown with one interception.
Sanders’s Instagram account shared a video of them embracing before the game.
‘Prime Time!’ Shedeur said as he greeted his dad in a tunnel to the field at Allegiant Stadium.
A group of friends and family also came out to show their support for Shedeur, including Shedeur’s private quarterback trainer Darrell Colbert Jr., his older brother Deion Sanders Jr. and Deion Sanders’ business manager Constance Schwartz-Morini.
After Shedeur completed a 53-yard pass early in the game, CBS cameras showed the cowboy-hatted father smiling, cheering and animated in his perch at the stadium. He later was seen enjoying the game with former NBA player Matt Barnes.
‘Being able to see my family, that was important,’ Shedeur Sanders said after the game. ‘I’m happy they was here to be able to witness it.’
His mother Pilar also attended the game, leading Shedeur to tell a CBS reporter he was thankful that both of his parents are in his life. Deion Sanders filed for divorce from Pilar in 2011, but the two have been present for Shedeur’s big moments, including the NFL draft in April at the family estate in Texas.
‘That’s what life is about − just family,’ Shedeur said afterward.
Deion Sanders, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, had been undecided as recently as Nov. 20 about whether to attend his son’s NFL starting debut in person. His team just dropped a 42-17 loss at home against Arizona State the night before to fall to 3-8 this season. His team also often practices on Sundays. But family won the day in the end, with Sanders noting Shedeur came back to Boulder to surprise him during the Browns’ recent bye weekend.
Deion Sanders said on the “Colorado Football Coaches Show” Nov. 20 he was urged to attend the game.
“You don’t want to be his distraction, but not that I would ever would be,” Sanders said on the show. “But then you think, ‘You know, he came all the way up here to see you?’ So that’s even (a) shorter trip to see him. You start thinking that as a dad, you know. Because you know what it means to him if he just catch a glimpse of him before he walks out.”
That’s what the video showed, a short moment between father and son before he took the field in Las Vegas.
Deion Sanders misses his youngest son and not just as a father. His team has struggled without him in Colorado. The Buffaloes finish the season at Kansas State on Nov. 29.
Shedeur is the first of Deion Sanders’ three sons to play in an NFL game. His eldest son Deion Jr. played college football at SMU. His middle son Shilo played for his father at Colorado and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a free agent after not getting drafted in April. But Shilo Sanders was waived by the team before the season.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com