Memo to Shilo Sanders: Unless there’s a football spiraling towards you, keep your hands to yourself.
The son of Deion Sanders and former Colorado Buffaloes safety was waived by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, a day after throwing a punch against the Buffalo Bills’ Zach Davidson in the first half of a preseason game. Sanders was ejected following the scuffle. His agents told ESPN’s Adam Schefter, who broke the news of his being waived Sunday morning, that they were “hoping” he gets claimed by another team.
The timing of this latest incident was uncanny. Nearly a decade ago, Sanders was involved in another violent altercation, one that still haunts his professional and financial life.
On Sep. 17, 2015, Sanders—then a 15-year-old student at Focus Learning Academy, a private school in Texas—allegedly assaulted campus security guard John Darjean after being confronted for using his cell phone on school property. Darjean later filed a lawsuit in Dallas County District Court, claiming the attack caused “permanent neurological injuries” and cervical spine damage.
Darjean named Sanders and his parents, Deion and Pilar Sanders, as co-defendants, effectively accusing them of failing to properly supervise and educate their son. Deion and Pilar were eventually dismissed from the case, but Shilo remained a defendant.
After years of legal proceedings, the case went to trial in March 2022, just months after Sanders had wrapped up his first season at Jackson State—where he had transferred and earned second-team All-SWAC honors under his father’s coaching. A jury found him liable and ordered him to pay $11.9 million to Darjean and an additional $214,621 to the insurance company that had covered Darjean’s workers’ compensation.
In October 2023, Sanders filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, citing the judgment as the sole source of his debts. By then, he and his brother Shedeur had transferred to the University of Colorado, following their father’s hiring as the Buffaloes’ head coach. In his initial bankruptcy filings, Sanders listed having earned $193,713 in income in 2023, prior to filing for Chapter 7.
However, the precise amount of money Sanders was due to earn from NIL deals became a subject of dispute, eventually leading a bankruptcy judge to grant a trustee’s request for a special counsel to be appointed in an attempt to quantify them.
Meanwhile, Darjean lodged a creditor’s claim exceeding $13.39 million, arising from what he characterized as the “willful and malicious assault and savage beating” he suffered at Sanders’ hands. In January 2024, Darjean filed adversarial proceedings in bankruptcy court, seeking to prevent the judgment from being discharged and accusing Sanders of delaying document production to the trustee. Sanders secured a partial victory four months later, when the court partially granted his motion to dismiss, though it allowed claims regarding his alleged misuse of limited liability companies to go forward. (Sanders has asserted that his NIL deals were conducted through two LLCs and, therefore, should not be attributed to his personal assets.)
A motion for summary judgment was denied in December, leaving the crux of the matter unresolved. If Darjean ultimately prevails, he will be entitled to pursue collection efforts, potentially including garnishment of Sanders’ NFL income.
As USA Today noted, the situation paradoxically gives Darjean a vested interest in the success of Sanders’ football career, insofar as it would generate assets subject to collection.
For the upcoming NFL season, the minimum salary for rookie players on an active roster is set at $845,000, an increase from the previous year. Sanders—and Darjean, for that matter—can now only hope the safety’s recurring issues don’t cost him his shot at making the league.
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