Albert Breer’s Notes: Two Key Questions As Brendan Sorsby Plans to Enter the NFL

With the last set of mandatory minicamps kicking off, here are your Tuesday notes.

Brendan Sorsby

There are two lingering questions now that Brendan Sorsby is officially ending the run at restoring his eligibility and plans to enter the NFL’s supplemental draft. The first is whether the league will let him in. The second will be whether sanctions follow him to the pros.

I think the answer to the first question is pretty straightforward: Yes, the NFL will let him in, or at least that’s the indication that Sorsby’s team has gotten from the league. And part of that is likely because the NFL would probably have a tough time legally turning him down. The NFL is a trade association, and it’s hard to see where it would be allowable for a trade association to prevent someone from outside its ranks from pursuing a career. The trade association would have to leave that part up to its companies, in this case, the 32 teams.

The second one is murkier. As you probably already know, the NFL levied a five-game suspension on Terrelle Pryor ahead of the 2011 supplemental draft, which was held in late August that year (pushed back because of the lockout). That suspension was to match the five-game suspension the NCAA slapped on Pryor following the memorabilia scandal at Ohio State. Interestingly, Pryor’s eligibility wasn’t revoked like Sorsby’s was, which complicates the comparison here, as Sorsby has no suspension for the NFL to match.

Pryor initially accepted his penalty, then, after the Raiders selected him in the third round on August 22, filed an appeal. In shooting down the appeal, commissioner Roger Goodell said he didn’t want the league to be a “sanctuary” for players penalized by the NCAA.

And in the backdrop of all this is the NFL’s growing relationship with gambling outlets and the ongoing monetization of the sort of sports betting that Sorsby was engaged in.

Those close to Sorsby insist that there wasn’t an integrity-of-the-game issue at hand and that it was simply a massive number of small bets placed over four years with two of his buddies. At the heart of the issue, of course, are bets Sorsby placed on Indiana football while he was on IU’s roster in 2022 and ’23. On the flip side, Sorsby never played in, or even was on the sideline for, a game he bet on (he wasn’t on the travel squad).

Sorsby has famed sports labor lawyer Jeffrey Kessler—long a thorn in the NFL’s side—on the case and is set to work through the particulars of his pending entry into pro football.

As for what’s ahead, the 22-year-old plans to stay in Lubbock until the end of the week, then head for Dallas, where he’ll move into a rental property on Monday to start his training with former Broncos offensive coordinator, and longtime NFL quarterback coach, Rich Scangarello. Scangarello’s now working for LIFT Sports Management alongside Sorsby’s agent, Ron Slavin, and a team that’ll help prep him for the weeks ahead.

On the legal side, Sorsby’s team will withdraw its lawsuit.

The NFL will soon set a window for workouts (it was initially set for July 5–12, but that was before Sorsby regained his eligibility last week, so it could change), and the draft, which is expected to take place in late July. Sorsby then plans to hold a pro day at Southlake Carroll Senior High School in the Dallas suburbs and have private workouts after that, should individual teams request them.

NFL supplemental draft

As a point of reference, just two players—running back Tony Hollings in 2003 and receiver Josh Gordon in 2012—have gone in the second round of the supplemental draft since 2000, and the last first-rounder was Dave Brown in 1992, a Duke quarterback taken by the Giants.

To be clear, I don’t think Sorsby goes in the first round like Brown, Steve Walsh and Bernie Kosar once did. But I think he has a really good shot to go in the second round.

We’ve covered Sorsby from a talent perspective quite a bit over the past few months. He’s still raw, but he’s a big, loose athlete with a ton of horsepower and impressive arm talent. He’s capable of getting a lot on the ball without much effort, similar to how Patrick Mahomes, Caleb Williams and Zach Wilson could as prospects. Some teams see him in the same tier as guys like Texas’s Arch Manning and Notre Dame’s CJ Carr (Oregon’s Dante Moore is more proven), who have a shot to play their way into the top five picks of the 2027 draft with a big year.

So the benefit for teams like the Jets or Cardinals throwing a second-round pick at him would be that you get him in your building now. If you hit on him—and you’ll have six months to figure that out—then you can spend high picks next year on players like Jeremiah Smith, Colin Simmons, Dylan Stewart or Leonard Moore, in a class that is expected to be loaded outside of the QB position, too.

James Pearce Jr.

The details in the James Pearce Jr. case from February are grisly, and count me as mildly surprised that the Falcons are having him in for minicamp this week, regardless of the result of his court case (he’s going into an intervention program to get the charges dropped). This feels to me like a situation where everyone should wait for the league to rule before reintroducing Pearce into football activities.

New York Jets

Joe Tippmann’s four-year, $62 million extension highlights an area where the Jets actually deserve some credit. They’ve done really nice work in reinventing an area that’s been such a trouble spot. In fact, the offensive line could wind up being a real strength, with young tackles Olu Fashanu and Armand Membou in place, veteran Josh Myers anchoring the group at center, and Tippmann and former Raider Dylan Parham at guard. And if the line is a strength, that can be a good start for a bad team to start turning the tide in becoming respectable.

Jordan Love

I was reminded on my Chicago radio spot Tuesday morning that the Packers brought in Tyrod Taylor to back up Jordan Love, and I actually think there could be real benefits to Love in having Taylor around. Since Aaron Rodgers left Green Bay three years ago, Love has been the most experienced quarterback in the room every season, so having an elder statesman in there with him, I think, will be to his benefit.

George Pickens

It’s worth mentioning as George Pickens goes into his franchise tag season, already signed, that the guaranteed money in CeeDee Lamb’s contract is almost all up after this year (he has just $7 million guaranteed for 2027 and none thereafter). So if Pickens earns a big contract after this year, there could, in time, be a torch-passing. Of course, Pickens still has to show that he can handle being the leader in that room.

Rashee Rice

Rashee Rice was released from jail Tuesday, and the Chiefs have an interesting summer ahead at his position. They were counting on him to be their top wide receiver, with Xavier Worthy and Tyquan Thornton the other guys figuring to play big roles. Given the reliability question there with Rice, the idea of kicking the tires on someone like Stefon Diggs sure would make some sense.

Aldon Smith

Finally, good on the family of Aldon Smith for allowing researchers to study his brain, and check for CTE. The idea of having to make that sort of decision on a loved one is heart-wrenching, but they’re making a difference in going forward with it.

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