Deion Sanders took the college football world by storm this season with the Colorado Buffaloes. He got his team out to a hot start before ultimately dwindling down the stretch, but the excitement and attention around Sanders never waned.
Some have wondered if Sanders would consider coaching in the NFL, but that doesn’t appear to be something that he’s thinking about any time soon.
Sanders explained why coaching in the NFL isn’t in the cards for him on Audacy’s “The Bret Boone Podcast” this week.
“It’s not in my cards,” Sanders said of coaching in the NFL (49:45 in player above). “That would be tough for me to fathom grown men making millions of dollars that don’t want to play. You know how we feel about some guys who didn’t want to play baseball. You want to take the day off? Why? Why? You’re getting compensated to play baseball, why do you need a day off?”
“I could never get over that with teammates,” Boone replied. “You got to be in there every day.”
Sanders and Boone were teammates on the Cincinnati Reds for parts of the 1994 and 1995 seasons, as well as in 1997.
“You was known as that gritty dude that just loved to play the game, man, and I appreciated that about you,” Sanders said. “We had some personalities then that were unbelievable.”
Sanders was fond of one player in particular: Lenny Harris.
“Lenny is the ultimate baseball teammate,” he said. “If you had to define a teammate as a baseball player: Lenny Harris.”
Harris showed up every day and was there for his teammates. He wasn’t a great player stats-wise, but there’s something to be said about having an 18-year career with eight different teams.
While Sanders had high praise for Harris, his skepticism about NFL players’ commitment seems like it’ll keep him in the college football ranks for the foreseeable future.