investigation by Ohio gambling officials<\/a>.<\/p>\nSorsby has retained renowned lawyer Jeffrey Kessler for a potential eligibility battle if he attempts to play another college season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a player who is in the conversation for the top two rounds next year in the draft,\u201d an executive said. \u201cHe\u2019s one of the guys who (scouts) were excited to evaluate. They were excited (about) this year and saw steady progression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorsby is a physically gifted passer with a strong arm, and he\u2019s mobile enough to extend plays. Multiple evaluators who spoke to The Athletic (they were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor in discussing a prospect who is not yet draft-eligible) believe it is plausible Sorsby would have been drafted ahead of Ty Simpson, who went No. 13 to the Los Angeles Rams, if he was part of the 2026 class. Evaluators want to see Sorsby improve his efficiency, decision-making and accuracy.<\/p>\n
Three NFL executives and one college coach whose program was interested in Sorsby in the transfer portal expressed shock over the allegations, as they hadn\u2019t previously been aware of any character concerns.<\/p>\n
Teams want to understand the scope of the betting. Was he laying down a few dollars here on sporadic prop bets or blowing through his NIL money to catch up on losses?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such a wide variety of possibilities,\u201d the executive added. \u201cIf he\u2019s betting on his own team, that\u2019s much different than UFC fights.\u201d<\/p>\n
If Sorsby opts for the NFL now, he would reinvigorate a supplemental draft that has gone by the wayside of late.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he comes out in the supplemental draft, he\u2019s going to be the most consequential prospect in a long, long time,\u201d an executive said.<\/p>\n
If Sorsby declares for the supplemental draft by June 30, the NFL will set a summer draft date, and teams would convene for a bidding process that\u2019s comparable to a silent auction. If the New York Jets, for example, submit a silent bid of a first-round pick, they\u2019d relinquish a first-rounder in the 2027 draft.<\/p>\n
Jalen Thompson was the last supplemental-draft selection, in 2019. Wide receiver Josh Gordon (2012) was the last second-rounder taken in the supplemental draft, and Terrelle Pryor (2011, third round) was the last quarterback taken. There have only been four players selected since Gordon, a falloff compared to the 11 who were drafted from 2002 to 2012.<\/p>\n
As teams await Sorsby\u2019s decision, they\u2019re assessing the best ways to gather information. If teams believe there\u2019s a possibility of a criminal investigation, it will change the entire scope of their evaluation.<\/p>\n
But if they ultimately determine Sorsby was only guilty of poor judgment, teams need to forecast the likelihood of it happening again.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a red flag, especially at QB,\u201d an executive said. \u201cConstantly worrying about your QB betting instead of working is going to be a problem for a lot of GMs. If it\u2019s really an addiction, that doesn\u2019t get better in one offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because the supplemental draft is only conducted on an as-needed basis, there isn\u2019t a formulaic evaluation process like the regular draft, where prospects would go through all-star games such as the Senior Bowl, the scouting combine, pro days, top-30 visits and medical checks over the course of nearly four months.<\/p>\n
In the supplemental draft, teams prepare for the likelihood the player and agent would attempt to jockey for control by restricting visits and interviews. If Sorsby truly doesn\u2019t want to play for a particular team, he could make it more awkward for that team to select him than he could with any of the games that agents and teams play in the lead-up to the regular draft. That would be one key benefit to an early declaration.<\/p>\n
Sorsby could host a workout for teams, one that would be similar to a pro day, but there\u2019s no guaranteed access to the player before the supplemental draft. That\u2019s why it\u2019s imperative for teams to trust their background work.<\/p>\n
One college coach, who wasn\u2019t privy to the specifics of Sorsby\u2019s situation, believes gambling at the college level is far more rampant than many realize. The coach wondered if Sorsby simply got caught up in the culture of sports betting and pointed toward the myriad segments, commercials and mid-game advertisements that normalize that lifestyle. Without proper education at such an impressionable age, there\u2019s a vulnerability to addiction.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe got caught,\u201d said the coach, \u201c(but) he\u2019s probably not overly different from kids in college football or sports in general. They\u2019re going to make mistakes. We all did at that age.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the NFL level, there\u2019s a newness to this type of red flag since sports betting went mainstream. One executive said that while there were past prospects who drew scrutiny regarding potential gambling issues, they tended to carry late-round or priority free agent grades. Sorsby\u2019s floor for the 2027 draft \u2014 before all this, of course \u2014 was viewed as being in the second round.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of top-50 guys or high-profile prospects,\u201d the executive said, \u201cthis is a new test case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorsby has asked the NCAA for an expedited ruling, and there are plenty of reasons he would want to play the 2026 season at Texas Tech.<\/p>\n
NIL is one of them: From a financial perspective, the 50th pick in the 2026 draft is scheduled to earn about $10 million over the course of a four-year rookie contract, including less than $2 million in the 2026 season. That amounts to a dramatic pay cut for the stars of the NIL era like Sorsby.<\/p>\n
NFL execs who discussed the quarterback with The Athletic estimate Sorsby is set to make between $7 million and $10 million in 2026 if he plays for Texas Tech. The No. 1 pick in the 2027 draft could receive a fully guaranteed four-year deal in the neighborhood of $60 million, plus the likelihood of at least another $25 million with a fifth-year option. The 10th pick would still be locked into a four-year deal worth north of $30 million.<\/p>\n
If Sorsby enters the supplemental draft, he has to consider the increased challenge of winning a starting job with a significantly shorter runway before his rookie season. He\u2019d report to a team nearly three months behind schedule, and there are already questions about his immediate readiness because of his lack of experience in pro-style systems.<\/p>\n
Of course, if Sorsby views this as a redshirt year regardless, the argument could be made that the supplemental draft is accelerating his timeline to start by 2027, while also putting him on a shorter route to a second NFL contract.<\/p>\n
So if he enters the supplemental draft, who would take him? The Jets, Miami Dolphins, Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns, Minnesota Vikings, Atlanta Falcons and Arizona Cardinals all have tenuous long-term plans at quarterback. And who\u2019s to say the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions aren\u2019t preparing for early succession plans with their franchise signal-callers?<\/p>\n
Or what if the Carolina Panthers, Houston Texans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers are concerned about upcoming negotiations with their QBs on expiring deals? With just 13 general managers still in place since the last supplemental draft pick in 2019, team strategies would be difficult to predict.<\/p>\n
The Jets have three first-round picks in 2027, so they can afford to be aggressive. While the Cowboys have been on a mission to restock their defense in the aftermath of the Micah Parsons trade, they could be drawn to Sorsby, who grew up less than an hour from Dallas.<\/p>\n
No one has an extra second-round pick in 2027, but the Vikings, Kansas City Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars each have an additional third-rounder. If Sorsby were still available in the third round of a supplemental draft, interested teams might feel compelled at that point to make a bid, recognizing the Vikings could be his floor. That could also be a factor for teams in the second round.<\/p>\n
Sorsby could focus his attention on trying to play for Texas Tech before entering the traditional draft in 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s see how he handles it and how he responds,\u201d one executive said. \u201cIf he does it with maturity and goes out and plays really well, I think it will blow over.\u201d<\/p>\n
If he turns that into a quiet year off the field and a loud one on it, he could work his way into the mix for the No. 1 pick and an exorbitantly more lucrative path.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the football side, everything is really positive,\u201d another executive said. \u201cHe\u2019s a late bloomer. He had the baseball background, a different path, a little bit of rawness to the player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Again, that\u2019s why teams hope to see more. Kessler, Sorsby\u2019s lawyer, represented Tom Brady during the Deflategate investigation and has flexed his legal muscle during numerous prominent cases. It\u2019s too early to predict how an appeal could play out, but Kessler is considered a valuable ally in the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cTexas Tech should find a way to keep him,\u201d an executive said. \u201cThat\u2019s probably the best thing for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorsby\u2019s stock would take a sizable hit if he skips the supplemental draft and is ruled ineligible to play for Texas Tech in 2026. In that scenario, he\u2019d go roughly 21 months between his final collegiate game and his first NFL preseason game. Trey Lance had a similarly concerning layoff before injuries further slowed his developmental arc, and teams will be wary that Sorsby will enter the league with much less room for error before he\u2019s possibly discarded like so many other QBs.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s one more element out of his control. Sorsby could return to school to have a perfectly fine year, but comparable prospects, such as South Carolina\u2019s LaNorris Sellers, Ohio State\u2019s Julian Sayin and Notre Dame\u2019s C.J. Carr, could explode like Jayden Daniels in 2023. Maybe, talented but inconsistent prospects such as USC\u2019s Jayden Maiava, Ole Miss\u2019 Trinidad Chambliss, Miami\u2019s Darien Mensah and\/or UCLA\u2019s Nico Iamaleava eradicate those concerns and improve their stocks. Or perhaps some of them are simply deemed safer prospects without the gambling concerns. There\u2019s a crowd behind Manning and Moore, so nitpicking could be even more prevalent than usual.<\/p>\n
If Sorsby feels confident that he\u2019ll be eligible for at least half the college season, the positives of returning to school appear to outweigh the negatives, at least as far as NFL teams view the situation. But there are still too many variables to know for sure.<\/p>\n
Right now, all sides are scrambling for information to be ready when Sorsby makes his decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby is shaping up to be a fascinating case study for NFL teams. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,349,99],"class_list":["post-650241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}