While the rest of the NFL watches his brother Shedeur, Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans have their eyes on rookie Shilo Sanders. The undrafted free agent joined the Bucs as a safety and put together a promising preseason debut, leading to speculation that he could be destined to join the Buccaneers' 53-man roster.
He brought a fair -- or potentially unfair -- amount of baggage with him but has impressed all of the right people in a short amount of time.
“Shilo played tough. I thought he went in and did a heck of a job," said head coach Todd Bowles after his performance against the Titans in the preseason. "He had some good tackles inside and he had a pressure on the quarterback, as well."
However, Sanders is trying to make the roster at a stacked position.
Buccaneers say goodbye to Shilo Sanders in latest 53-man roster projection
The latest roster projection from Pewter Report has Tampa Bay keeping five safeties on the active roster, but Sanders is not one of them. Instead, the projection gives roster spots to J.J. Roberts and Kaevon Merriwether, in addition to Christian Izien, Tykee Smith and Antoine Winfield Jr.
The best chance for Sanders to make the roster would be to take the spot of Roberts, who is also an undrafted free agent. Roberts is more versatile than Sanders, and has been getting looks at nickel corner in camp. The Bucs also financially invested in Roberts, giving him a three-year rookie contract that paid out $300,000 guaranteed -- not an insignificant amount of money.
That means the competition for Sanders is steep. There's also a possibility that Tampa Bay chooses to only keep four safeties on the roster, which would almost certainly leave Sanders out.
If Sanders does miss out on making the active roster, where does that leave him with Tampa Bay? Likely as a member of the practice squad. He's been praised enough by Bowles that it feels like the Buccaneers would like to keep him around. He's also the son of an NFL legend, which could bring some name value and recognition to Tampa Bay.
In two years at the University of Colorado, Sanders appeared in 21 games and made 137 tackles. He secured one interception, an 80-yard pick-six. He defended five passes, made three tackles-for-loss, one sack and recovered three fumbles, including one that he ran back for a touchdown.
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