NFL teams should be clamoring for Deion Sanders

Twenty years ago, two years after retiring from the NFL and then trying during the 2002 season to slip through waivers and join the Raiders, Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders made a pitch to be the head coach of the Falcons.

"I can make them a better team, and I know that, because I know the things that really need to be done there," Sanders told ESPN.com. "I put so much time into preparing every week for my Sunday job [at CBS], watching tape and talking to players and coaches, that I still live football. It's still a big part of me. I talk to head coaches and assistants, guys with whom I'm close, every week. I know what the job involves, believe me, and I know I can do it."

Two decades later, Sanders has proven he can do it. He has become the hottest name in college football. After turning Jackson State around, he landed at Colorado like an asteroid, blowing a gaping hole in the existing order and shaking things up one day at a time.

Deion supposedly doesn't want to coach in the NFL. He'll possibly change his mind if/when owners start throwing money at him.

And they should. Watch the video from the locker room before the upset over TCU. Some will say that won't work on NFL players. Bullshit. I'm 58, and it made me want to run through a wall. (Or at least run into a wall and bounce off of it.)

Compare Deion's comments to the trailer the Cardinals distributed with new coach Jonathan Gannon talking to a roomful of disinterested players. One of the most important duties of any NFL coach is to command a room of grown ass men. Deion can do it. Gannon, frankly and with all due respect, cannot.

Someone needs to pursue Deion in the next hiring cycle. The team that gets him would instantly become the hippest and hottest and most attractive destination in the entire NFL. And Deion would be worth every penny he makes, and then some.

I believe. You should believe, too. Because Deion believes — and he knows how to make others believe in themselves. In a league where the margins are wafer thin, that belief can be all the difference on game day.