SAN FRANCISCO -- In a typical year, Shedeur Sanders' seven starts and resulting production wouldn't have landed him in the Pro Bowl.
2025 wasn't a typical year, though, and when Sanders was in an airport while traveling to see his brother, Shiloh, in January, he received the most unexpected phone call of his rookie season.
The message was short, sweet and celebratory: He was headed to San Francisco with a new honor on his resumé.
"Yes, I was surprised," Sanders said with a smile before Monday's practice ahead of the Pro Bowl Games. "It wasn't like I was just sitting there expecting it. ... I just didn't have too much thought in it.
"I'm not going to lie, a lot of the time I'm taking it day by day. ... If you would tell me that this was going to happen at the beginning of the year, I couldn't say that that would've happened."
After an assortment of Pro Bowl opt-outs, Sanders was one of three quarterbacks to land on the AFC roster, joining Cincinnati's Joe Burrow and Joe Flacco. The latter provided Sanders with a familiar face after he spent the summer and first month of the 2025 season sharing the same QB room with Flacco in Cleveland.
To Sanders' delight, Flacco -- who is also making his first Pro Bowl trip in his much longer career -- hadn't changed much from September to February.
"I already gained it," Sanders said when asked what he hoped to gain from his Pro Bowl experience. "Talking to a lot of great players, seeing Joe Flacco again with the same sweatpants he wore in practice, everything. Just meeting people; it's a great environment. I'm excited to be here. I'm thankful for it."
Sanders' last year has been full of unexpected outcomes, starting with his fall from a first-round projection to a fifth-round selection made by the Browns. It continued when he found himself in the third place on Cleveland's depth chart, then replaced an injured Dillon Gabriel during the Browns' Week 11 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, and eventually assumed the starting role for the remainder of a season that ended with the firing of his coach, Kevin Stefanski.
Asked to summarize his first NFL season, Sanders was concise: "Fun," he said, putting a positive spin on Cleveland's 5-12 finish. "It was fun."
The Colorado product might be encountering the most enjoyable portion of his NFL experience to date now, though, while surrounded by a cast of AFC all-stars.
"It's amazing. I'm truly thankful for it," he said. "I just come in here and I'm like 'dang, I really get to be around all these great guys and great coaches.' It's surreal."
"All of them," Sanders continued when asked whom he was most excited to play with. "I just told all of them 'oh, you're in that slot? Oh you're outside? You're at running back? You're snapping the ball?' I say that to all of them. ... They're on my team."
Sanders will have plenty of new experiences ahead of him back in Cleveland, too, especially after the Browns hired Todd Monken -- a longtime coordinator who directed Lamar Jackson to an MVP season in 2023 and expressed interest in Sanders while Monken was calling plays in Baltimore -- to replace Stefanski. The two met at the Browns' headquarters shortly after Monken was hired, and while Sanders declined to divulge details from their conversation, he came away with one positive takeaway.
"It's truly great that he was able to coach Lamar and he was able to accomplish everything he was able to accomplish in his life and his career," Sanders said. "I feel like we definitely have a connection just from talking to him, just seeing his vibe. He has a great vibe about him."
Vibes can open a door to greater success, but not without effort. With this in mind, Sanders isn't narrowing his focus down to a category or two as he approaches his second NFL season. Instead, he's keeping an open mind while trying to be as coachable as possible.
