Deion Sanders Drops a Bombshell on How NIL Could Have Transformed His Playing Days

We’ve all seen how NIL has transformed the college football landscape over the past couple of years. But it’s fun to imagine what exactly NIL would have looked like in years prior.

There have been many college football stars throughout history that we perhaps only got brief glimpses of their eccentric lifestyle and personality before they truly took off once they reached the NFL and earned lucrative deals.

Current Colorado Buffaloes coach Deion Sanders is one of them.

Sanders, otherwise mainly known as Coach Prime these days, was as boisterous as any player in college football history. He had every right to be.

While at Florida State, he was a two-time unanimous All-American. In his four years playing for the Seminoles, Sanders compiled 14 interceptions, three of which he returned for touchdowns. With his speed, he was also one of the game’s best kick and punt returners, racking up another three scores.

One can only imagine the NIL deals that would have been thrown Sanders’ way at the time. In fact, Sanders, who was recently a guest on All the Smoke with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, said he would have been incomparable to anyone else currently.

“Is he saved?” Sanders said of his 19-year-old self. “Because if he ain’t have the Lord with him … it’s gonna be trouble.”

Sanders now leans heavily on his Christian faith to guide him, though still with his Prime flair. He admits that there would have been no limits to how far he would have gone back then if he had all the access current college football players have.

“I don’t even know who to compare me to what I would be like,” Sanders said. “Jesus. I would need help because of all the access, the internet. Trouble. I would really need Jesus to come down, himself. … ‘Slow down.’”

As electric as Sanders was at the college level, it was a more regionalized sport back then. So, once he got to the NFL, he really took off as more than just an athlete but a pop culture personality.

Drafted as the fifth overall pick in the 1989 NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons, Sanders signed his first league contract for five years, $5.4 million, with $2 million guaranteed, according to Over The Cap. Over the span of his 14-year career, he earned about $45 million, which doesn’t even include his MLB salary, where he made another $13 million.

Picturing Sanders in the current landscape of college football, where players have never had as much power and access to making money off their name, is a fun thought, but also perhaps a dangerous and inconceivable one.

As much as we know about Coach Prime from his playing days and even now as coach for Colorado, he would have taken everything to the next level and become a massive trendsetter, for better or for worse.