BEREA, Ohio (AP) — Shedeur Sanders didn’t have time to be sad while his father battled bladder cancer during the spring.
Instead, Deion Sanders’ message was clear and direct as his son prepared for his first NFL training camp after being drafted in the fifth round by the Cleveland Browns.
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Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (12) celebrates after completing a pass to wide receiver Luke Floriea (37) during a practice at the team's NFL football training camp, Saturday, July 26, 2025, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Richard)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders, right, signs autographs after a practice at the team's NFL football training camp Saturday, July 26, 2025, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Richard)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (12) talks to quarterback Joe Flacco (15) during a practice at the team's NFL football training camp Saturday, July 26, 2025, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Richard)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders warms up during a practice at the team's NFL football training camp Friday, July 25, 2025, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Richard)
Stay focused mentally.
“Dad, he’s one person that he’ll handle his, we handle what we’ve got to do. It was like, ‘y’all need to focus on what y’all could focus on. Y’all can’t sit here and feel sorry for me, and then that’s affecting y’all doing that.” Shedeur Sanders said Monday.
“At the end of the day, you’re all able to see and you’re all able to understand everything on and off the field that I go through. So then you’ve got to be some type of human at some point in the way I’m doing everything and how I’m handling everything that’s thrown at me. You’ve got no choice but to applaud that.”
Monday marked Sanders’ first time talking to reporters since his father, Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, announced on July 28 that doctors had removed his bladder to ward off an aggressive form of cancer. Shedeur was back on the field after missing Saturday’s practice because of arm soreness.
To say Shedeur Sanders has had an eventful first eight-plus months of 2025 would be an understatement. There was the hype about him being a possible first-round pick leading up to the NFL draft, followed by a well-publicized drop to the fifth round, where he was taken 144th overall by the Browns.
The Browns are bringing along Sanders slowly, with veterans Joe Flacco and Kenny Pickett competing for the starting job. Third-round pick Dillon Gabriel has also received some first-team snaps.
So far, Sanders hasn’t taken any snaps with the first-team offense. He has faced the first-team defense a couple of times while taking snaps with the second- and third-team offenses.
“I view it as the defense does a great job of mixing players in. So (line)backers, you’ve got rookies out there. Sometimes DBs, you’ve got different guys out there,” he said.
“Truthfully, I don’t care what O-line I go out there with. It could be ones, twos, threes, whatever the situation is. And I know Friday when the game is, if I’m with twos, if I’m with threes. It don’t matter to me. I’m just ready to get down and get to doing what I could.”
While Deion Sanders visited Shilo Sanders during the Buccaneers’ training camp on July 23, the focus soon shifted to when Coach Prime would appear in Cleveland.
Shedeur, however, asked his father to stay away because of the lack of snaps and the attention that would follow.
“I don’t want him to come and see me get a couple of reps, and then he’s cheering like a good dad. Like, ‘nah, you can’t be proud of me right now, I got to get to where I’m going,’ I know there’s a lot I’ve got to do to get there,” Sanders said. “I just want everything that I’m doing to be focused on this time, and I don’t want distractions.
“We know how everybody would take it, as taking away from the team, with my own dad showing up. It’s a gift and a curse at the same time.”
Coach Kevin Stefanski and offensive coordinator Tommy Rees have not outlined how snaps will be divided for Wednesday’s joint practice and Friday’s game against the Carolina Panthers.
Part of this uncertainty comes from Pickett and Gabriel both dealing with hamstring injuries. Both did individual drills on Monday.
The recent trend throughout the league is for veteran players to receive most of the snaps in joint workouts, with rookies then playing in the preseason games. For Sanders and Gabriel, the games would be the best indicators to date on how they can adapt to things on the fly.
“You’re (quarterback is) obviously not wearing a red jersey, so you’re free game in those situations, whereas you’re not in practice or a joint practice with another team,” Stefanski said. “So I think those are all things that we weigh as coaches trying to figure out what our team needs for a given season, for a given week.”
Sanders did have one of the best throws on Monday with a 28-yard completion to Luke Floriea on fourth-and-17 during a two-minute drill.
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Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (12) celebrates after completing a pass to wide receiver Luke Floriea (37) during a practice at the team's NFL football training camp, Saturday, July 26, 2025, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Richard)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders, right, signs autographs after a practice at the team's NFL football training camp Saturday, July 26, 2025, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Richard)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders (12) talks to quarterback Joe Flacco (15) during a practice at the team's NFL football training camp Saturday, July 26, 2025, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Richard)
Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders warms up during a practice at the team's NFL football training camp Friday, July 25, 2025, in Berea, Ohio. (AP Photo/David Richard)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most American presidents aspire to the kind of greatness that prompts future generations to name important things in their honor.
Donald Trump isn't leaving it to future generations.
As the first year of his second term wraps up, his administration and allies have put the president’s name on the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleships.
That’s on top of the “Trump Accounts” for tax-deferred investments, the TrumpRx government website soon to offer direct sales of prescription drugs, the “Trump Gold Card” visa that costs at least $1 million and the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a transit corridor included in a deal his administration brokered between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On Friday, he plans to attend a ceremony in Florida where local officials will dedicate a 4-mile (6-kilometer) stretch of road from the airport to his Mar-a-Lago estate as President Donald J. Trump Boulevard.
It’s unprecedented for a sitting president to embrace tributes of that number and scale, especially those proffered by members of his administration. And while past sitting presidents have typically been honored by local officials naming schools and roads after them, it's exceedingly rare for airports, federal buildings, warships or other government assets to be named for someone still in power.
“At no previous time in history have we consistently named things after a president who was still in office,” said Jeffrey Engel, the David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “One might even extend that to say a president who is still alive. Those kind of memorializations are supposed to be just that — memorials to the passing hero.”
White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said the TrumpRx website linked to the president's deals to lower the price of some prescription drugs, along with “overdue upgrades of national landmarks, lasting peace deals, and wealth-creation accounts for children are historic initiatives that would not have been possible without President Trump’s bold leadership.”
"The Administration’s focus isn’t on smart branding, but delivering on President Trump’s goal of Making America Great Again," Huston said.
The White House pointed out that the nation's capital was named after President George Washington and the Hoover Dam was named after President Herbert Hoover while each was serving as president.
For Trump, it’s a continuation of the way he first etched his place onto the American consciousness, becoming famous as a real estate developer who affixed his name in big gold letters on luxury buildings and hotels, a casino and assorted products like neckties, wine and steaks.
As he ran for president in 2024, the candidate rolled out Trump-branded business ventures for watches, fragrances, Bibles and sneakers — including golden high tops priced at $799. After taking office again last year, Trump's businesses launched a Trump Mobile phone company, with plans to unveil a gold-colored smartphone and a cryptocurrency memecoin named $TRUMP.
That’s not to be confused with plans for a physical, government-issued Trump coin that U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said the U.S. Mint is planning.
Trump has also reportedly told the owners of Washington’s NFL team that he would like his name on the Commanders’ new stadium. The team’s ownership group, which has the naming rights, has not commented on the idea. But a White House spokeswoman in November called the proposed name “beautiful” and said Trump made the rebuilding of the stadium possible.
The addition of Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center in December so outraged independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that he introduced legislation this week to ban the naming or renaming of any federal building or land after a sitting president — a ban that would retroactively apply to the Kennedy Center and Institute of Peace.
“I think he is a narcissist who likes to see his name up there. If he owns a hotel, that’s his business,” Sanders said in an interview. “But he doesn’t own federal buildings.”
Sanders likened Trump's penchant for putting his name on government buildings and more to the actions of authoritarian leaders throughout history.
“If the American people want to name buildings after a president who is deceased, that’s fine. That’s what we do,” Sanders said. “But to use federal buildings to enhance your own position very much sounds like the ‘Great Leader’ mentality of North Korea, and that is not something that I think the American people want.”
Although some of the naming has been suggested by others, the president has made clear he’s pleased with the tributes.
Three months after the announcement of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a name the White House says was proposed by Armenian officials, the president gushed about it at a White House dinner.
“It’s such a beautiful thing, they named it after me. I really appreciate it. It’s actually a big deal,” he told a group of Central Asian leaders.
Engel, the presidential historian, said the practice can send a signal to people "that the easiest way to get access and favor from the president is to play to his ego and give him something or name something after him.”
Some of the proposals for honoring Trump include legislation in Congress from New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney that would designate June 14 as “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day," placing the president with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington and Jesus Christ, whose birthdays are recognized as national holidays.
Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube has introduced legislation that calls for the Washington-area rapid transit system, known as the Metro, to be renamed the “Trump Train.” North Carolina Republican Rep. Addison McDowell has introduced legislation to rename Washington Dulles International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport.
McDowell said it makes sense to give Dulles a new name since Trump has already announced plans to revamp the airport, which currently is a tribute to former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
The congressman said he wanted to honor Trump because he feels the president has been a champion for combating the scourge of fentanyl, a personal issue for McDowell after his brother’s overdose death. But he also cited Trump’s efforts to strike peace deals all over the world and called him “one of the most consequential presidents ever.”
“I think that’s somebody that deserves to be honored, whether they’re still the president or whether they’re not," he said.
More efforts are underway in Florida, Trump’s adopted home.
Republican state lawmaker Meg Weinberger said she is working on an effort to rename Palm Beach International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport, a potential point of confusion with the Dulles effort.
The road that the president will see christened Friday is not the first Florida asphalt to herald Trump upon his return to the White House.
In the south Florida city of Hialeah, officials in December 2024 renamed a street there as President Donald J. Trump Avenue.
Trump, speaking at a Miami business conference the next month, called it a “great honor” and said he loved the mayor for it.
“Anybody that names a boulevard after me, I like,” he said.
He added a few moments later: “A lot of people come back from Hialeah, they say, ‘They just named a road after you.' I say, ‘That’s OK.’ It’s a beginning, right? It’s a start.”
FILE - A sign for the Rose Garden is seen near the Presidential Walk of Fame on the Colonnade at the White House, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as a flag pole is installed on the South Lawn of the White House, June 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Workers add President Donald Trump's name to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, after a Trump-appointed board voted to rename the institution, in Washington, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - A poster showing the Trump Gold Card is seen as President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)
