Last week, quarterback Brendan Sorsby applied for the NFL’s supplemental draft. Since then, the league has said nothing about whether Sorsby will be in the supplemental draft — or whether a supplemental draft will even be conducted.
Although that has caused some to wonder whether the NFL may be cooking up a way to keep Sorsby out of the supplemental draft, the more realistic explanation is that nothing has been said because the deadline for applications has not yet come and gone.
Today, June 22, is the deadline for the supplemental draft. It would make sense for the league to wait until any and all applications are submitted, to then determine whether the applicants fit within the Collective Bargaining Agreement’s definition of eligibility for the supplemental draft, and then to announce the supplemental draft pool along with other relevant details (such as, most importantly, the specific date on which the supplemental draft will be held).
Sorsby seems to qualify. He wasn’t eligible for the April draft, because he didn’t apply for early admission. He has since lost his NCAA eligibility. He’s now eligible for the supplemental draft.
That doesn’t stop the NFL from trying to engineer a finding that Sorsby technically isn’t eligible. The league could try to argue that Sorsby actually was eligible for the April draft because he knew or should have known that he had lost his remaining NCAA eligibility. Likewise, the league could claim that Sorsby was eligible for the 2026 college football season (thanks to the court order he secured on June 8) and that dropping the lawsuit creating that order for the purposes of becoming eligible for the supplemental draft doesn’t count.
It’s unlikely that the league will pursue either option. If the NFL intends to impose a sanction on Sorsby, it makes more sense to do so after he’s drafted. At that point, the Commissioner will have full authority to impose an integrity-of-the-game suspension on Sorsby, and to have exclusive say over the inevitable NFLPA grievance.
Because Sorsby currently isn’t in the NFLPA, an effort to keep him out would invite legal action by Sorsby with NFL nemesis Jeffrey Kessler leading the charge. A judge, not the Commissioner, would have the final say.
So, yes, Sorsby likely will be allowed to enter the supplemental draft. After he’s drafted, the league could attempt to take action — even if it shouldn’t, under both the Kayshon Boutte and Hunter Dekkers precedents.
That’s the one fact that gets lost by the argument that a college football player who bet on his own team should be punished by the NFL. Boutte and Dekkers did the same thing Sorsby did. (Boutte actually played in one or more games on which he wagered at LSU.) Because the NFL took no action against either of them, the NFL should take no action against Sorsby.
