The Dolphins Factors to Consider with Brendan Sorsby

Looks like Brendan Sorsby again is expected to be available in a summertime supplemental draft, which means the Miami Dolphins and every other team in the NFL again will have to decide whether it's worth their while to invest a 2027 draft pick on the talented but controversial quarterback.

We examined the pros and cons of the Dolphins going for Sorsby last month after he was suspended by the NCAA for gambling, though it appeared the point would be moot after a Texas federal court later ruled he should be allowed to play after serving a two-game suspension.

But amid the backlash that followed that court ruling, including a lawsuit by the Big 12 Conference against Texas Tech, Sorsby now is expected to skip playing for that school in 2026 and instead apply for the supplemental draft.

Teams can submit bids for any player in a supplemental draft, forfeiting that round's choice in the next regular draft if it winds up with a player — for example, the Arizona Cardinals forfeited their fifth-round pick in the 2020 draft when they selected safety Jalen Thompson in the fifth round of the 2019 supplemental draft.

If a team is without a pick in a certain round, it can't bid for a player in that round. With the Dolphins, this means they can't bid a seventh-round pick for Sorsby even if they wanted to because they don't have a seventh-round pick in 2026.

If more than one team has the highest bid in terms of round, the draft order is split into three groups with a weighted lottery used for the final order.

The three groups are:
-- teams that won six or fewer games the previous season, and in this case there are 10 of those teams.
-- teams that won more than six games but didn't make the playoffs, and that would include the Dolphins and their 7-10 record. They were the only team to finish with that mark, meaning they'll have the best lottery chance among that second group.
-- the playoff teams

THE DOLPHINS DECISION

Sorsby is a talented enough quarterback to merit discussion despite his gambling addiction, and good quarterbacks are hard enough to find that one would expect that he will get selected in the supplemental draft.

The big questions are in what round and by which team.

The Dolphins shouldn't be eliminated as a possibility because they're in rebuilding mode, they've been searching for a franchise quarterback for a very, very long time and GM Jon-Eric Sullivan and head coach Jeff Hafley can't know for sure whether Malik Willis can be that guy no matter how confident they are in his potential based on what they saw up close in Green Bay the past two years.

The Dolphins also didn't invest $45 million over the next two years to give up on Willis very quickly and the belief remains he'll be given those two full years to provide the answer to the key question.

While the offense didn't light it up with Willis in the spring practices — at least those practices open to the media — he made enough impressive throws to combine with his small body of work with the Packers to still feel confident about what he might become as an NFL quarterback.

Likewise, Quinn Ewers' spring performance — again, based on the open practices — was good enough for the Dolphins to feel very comfortable they're in good shape with the backup quarterback spot with a much brighter outlook than at this same time each of the past few years.

The Dolphins roster underwent an overhaul in the offseason and the hope is the team hit on way more of their 13 draft picks than not, but they'll still need to add building blocks in the 2027 draft as well.

That factor alone should make them think long and hard before investing too early a pick on Sorsby, though the idea of landing a big-time quarterback at a good price will be hard to resist.

The question, of course, is what will constitute a good price, particulary given the problematic way Sorsby will be entering the NFL.

The Dolphins will have the opportunity to be very patient with Sorsby if they do end up with him because it will be Willis at quarterback in 2026 with Ewers as the backup, and more than likely the same setup in 2027.

Miami isn't in the same kind of rush to get a starting quarterback as, say, the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Jets or Arizona Cardinals because the Dolphins are going to see the Willis experiment through.

Those are the four teams most likely to end up with Sorsby, but we wouldn't eliminate the Dolphins as a possibility entirely. It just would be very surprising to see them squandering anything but a Day 3 pick — particularly after what we saw from Willis and Ewers in the spring.

The Dolphins simply aren't desperate for a quarterback at this point.

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