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Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders addressed a rumor that he wears a thong while playing in NFL games after a photo of his backside went viral.
“Let’s cut to the business, bro. Did you wear a thong or not?” Shedeur’s older brother, Shilo Sanders, asked him in a video posted to his YouTube page on Tuesday, December 9.
Shedeur, 23, who took over the Browns starting job last month, had an innocent explanation for his appearance in a game against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday, December 7.
“You forgot I have a back injury, right?” Shedeur asked Shilo, 25. “So I get my back taped. But that is crazy that it did look like that. That’s funny, though.”
Shilo responded, “I know you wasn’t wearing no thong. You wouldn’t do nothing like that, right?”
“Nah, bro,” Shedeur said. “That was called back tape.”
The post from NFL content creator Dov Kleiman that led to ThongGate garnered more than 5 million views via X on Sunday.
Shedeur said he’s been wearing something similar to a “scuba suit” under his jersey to deal with chilly weather conditions, which only complicated the appearance of the back tape.
“I know the shirt was short, so I was like, ‘Hey, this will mess up my drip a little bit, huh?” Shedeur recalled asking a member of the Browns’ training staff. “He was like, ‘Nah, fam. You good, bro.’ And then after the game they be talking about, ‘Man, I got on a thong.’”
The back injury didn’t hamper Shedeur’s performance against the Titans, a game in which Shedeur finished with 364 passing yards, three passing touchdowns, 29 rushing yards and a rushing touchdown.
Despite the Browns losing 31-29 to the Titans, Shedeur became just the second rookie in NFL history with at least 350 passing yards, three passing touchdowns and a rushing touchdown in the same game, joining Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow in 2020.
After Shedeur’s impressive performance, Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski announced that he would remain as the team’s starting quarterback for the remainder of the season.
“I think [Shedeur] has constantly and consistently gotten better in each one of these games and how he’s approached this game,” Stefanski, 43, told reporters on Monday, December 8. “He’s been working very hard. So, I feel good about where his development is heading. He knows there are always going to be plays that he can be better and those type of things, but he’s very intentional about getting better each and every game he’s out there.”
The Browns return to action on Sunday, December 14, when they travel to Chicago to face the Bears.
Cleveland finishes their schedule with home games against the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers, before wrapping things up with a season finale on the road against the Bengals.
Looking ahead to next season, ESPN’s Peter Schrager argued that Shedeur has done enough to deserve consideration for the starting quarterback position into the future.
“I think he absolutely has earned himself an opportunity to compete for that job,” Schrager, 43, said Wednesday, December 10, on “Get Up”. “He didn’t have that going into this season, so that’s a major plus from last year.”
