After retiring from the Washington Redskins prior to the start of the 2001 season, one year later, Deion Sanders strongly considered coming out of retirement to play for the Oakland Raiders and help them win Super Bowl XXXVII. This is the story behind how Deion Sanders was moments away from joining the silver and black and the 2002 Raiders
Deion Sanders, nicknamed “Prime Time” and “Neon Deion”, is an American athlete and sports analyst who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons. During his American football career, he was a member of the Atlanta Falcons, the San Francisco 49ers, the Dallas Cowboys, the Washington Redskins, and the Baltimore Ravens. He also had a part-time career as a baseball outfielder for nine seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), where he played professionally for the New York Yankees, the Atlanta Braves, the Cincinnati Reds, and the San Francisco Giants. Sanders won two Super Bowl titles and made one World Series appearance in 1992, making him the only individual to appear in both a Super Bowl and a World Series.
Sanders attended Florida State University, where he was recognized as a two-time All-American in football, and also played baseball and ran track. He was drafted by the Falcons in the first round of the 1989 NFL Draft and played football primarily at cornerback, but also as a kick returner, punt returner, and occasionally wide receiver. During his career, he was named to eight Pro Bowls, received first-team All-Pro honors nine times, and made consecutive Super Bowl appearances in Super Bowl XXIX with the 49ers and Super Bowl XXX with the Cowboys, winning both. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2011.
Following his successful season with the 49ers, Sanders, along with his agent Eugene Parker, courted numerous teams in need of a cornerback. The several teams in the “Deion Sweepstakes”, as it was called by the media, were the Philadelphia Eagles, Oakland Raiders, Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints, San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys, who had lost their starting cornerback Kevin Smith to injury for the rest of the season.
On September 9, 1995 (which fell in Week 2 of that NFL season), Sanders signed a lucrative contract with the Dallas Cowboys (seven years, $35 million with a $12.999 million signing bonus, because owner Jerry Jones was superstitious about the number 13), essentially making him, at the time, the highest-paid defensive player in the NFL. Sanders later stated in his book Power, Money & Sex: How Success Almost Ruined My Life that the Oakland Raiders offered him more money than any other team, but he chose to play in Dallas for more time on the offensive side of the ball, a chance to win back-to-back Super Bowls, and because of his friendship with Cowboys wide receiver Michael Irvin. Arthroscopic surgery kept him sidelined until his debut in Week 9, which was once again in Atlanta against the Falcons; the Cowboys won, 28–13. He went on to help the Cowboys win their third title in four years in Super Bowl XXX against the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he returned a punt for 11 yards and caught a 47-yard reception on offense, setting up Dallas’ first touchdown of the game and a 27–17 victory. Sanders played four more seasons with Dallas, earning Pro Bowl selection in all of them. On June 2, 2000, he was released in a salary cap move
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