Shedeur Sanders Has Made More Money From The NFLPA Than Any Player In NFL History

Before the 2025 NFL Draft, some analysts were predicting Shedeur Sanders would be a top pick. If he didn't go in the top five, the son of Deion Sanders seemed like he had a pretty good shot to get taken in the first round. However, he told teams he wanted to be a starter, and as a result, he slid all the way down to the fifth round. The Cleveland Browns selected him with the 144th overall pick.

It was quite the fall for Sanders, although he did get his wish, starting in seven games for the Browns. The contract he signed is worth $4.647 million over four seasons. That's much less than he'd get as a first-rounder. However, he's still making tons of money, courtesy of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA).

Daniel Kaplan of Front Office Sports first reported that Sanders earned an impressive $17,712,015 from the NFLPA last year. Kaplan also noted that's an NFL record, nearly double what the previous top earner—Tom Brady, with $9.5 million—had made in a single year.

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Sanders, through his SS2 Legendary LLC, earned 13 payments for "royalties/player marketing" over the past year. The majority of NFLPA royalties for players are via distributed group licensing deals. Those deals combine money from a mix of jersey sales, trading cards, video games, action figures, and other collectibles.

The largest payment Sanders received was in May 2025, worth about $9.24 million. That was likely due to an individual guarantee on his trading card value. Sanders's jersey was also a hot commodity, and his gear could see a nice bump in sales this upcoming season, since he changed his number from 12 to 2. Fans who bought his rookie year jersey may want to replace it with the updated number.

Sanders certainly has some baked-in popularity due to his father's time in the league, but he's shown some flashes of potential on the field. The Browns did not really offer a lot of help around him, though with one more year of rebuilding, they're hoping he can display some more consistency this season.

If he does, he'll likely see some more healthy paychecks from the NFLPA.