With Supplemental Draft a Real Possibility for Brendan Sorsby, NFL Evaluators Weigh in on His Talent Level

June 1 is a big day in the NFL world, with the potential for big trades coming, as the league passes a checkpoint in its calendar that gives teams more salary-cap flexibility.

So that’s one arena for action today. The other one will be a courtroom in Lubbock, Texas.

There, a judge will hear Brendan Sorsby’s motion for an injunction, which would stop the NCAA from revoking his eligibility to play college football for Texas Tech while his case is making its way through the court system. To land the injunction, the burden is on Sorsby’s team, led by famed sports labor lawyer Jeffrey Kessler, to show a substantial likelihood that they’ll be successful in court. Which, if you look at the facts of the case, seems unlikely.

Amended NCAA rules are fairly black-and-white that athletes cannot place bets on or against teams, the ones they’re on or otherwise, at the school they’re attending. Sorsby already has copped to betting on the Indiana football team while he was on the Hoosiers’ roster in 2022 and 2023. That would seem to make this case relatively open-and-shut.

The wild card here would be the venue of the hearing, and how a Red Raider-friendly judge could rule with the hope of Sorsby playing for Tech hanging in the balance.

If the judge rules against Sorsby, then he’ll have until June 22 to apply for the supplemental draft. The NFL has given his camp a window, in the case that happens, of July 5-12 to work out for teams, and he’s planning to have a pro day in the Dallas area that week if he does enter the draft, with the potential for private workouts with individual teams in there, too.

In case all this went down, I thought we’d dive into how the supplemental draft works and how this all might play out ahead of an expected late-July draft date. Here goes ...

• To start, the supplemental draft is there for players whose eligibility status has changed since the deadline to declare for the normal college draft. Sorsby’s has. And while the reason for that is different, and it’s a hot-button topic now, there have been plenty of different reasons for guys to enter the supplemental draft in the past—some related to NCAA rules (Terrelle Pryor), others to failed drug tests (Josh Gordon) and more tied to academic ineligibility (Ahmad Brooks).

• The draft order is actually set by lottery. It’s weighted by record and split into three tiers. The top tier is made up of teams that won six or fewer games last year. The second tier is made up of teams that won at least seven games and missed the playoffs. The third tier is playoff teams. So the league draws for the first tier, sets that order (there are 10 teams in that range this year), then does the same for the second (8 teams) and third (14 teams) tiers. And that drawing becomes the order for all seven rounds.

• From there, on draft day, teams put bids in on players. And much like the waiver process, the team that’s highest in the order of bids is awarded the player. If no bids go in on a guy, then he becomes a free agent.

• If a team gets a player in the 2026 supplemental draft, then it loses the corresponding pick in the 2027 college draft, so the team needs to have the pick in the 2027 draft to use it in the supplemental draft. So, for example, the Packers and Colts can’t bid first-rounders in the 2026 supplemental draft because they dealt those 2027 picks away (for Micah Parsons and Sauce Gardner, respectively).

• Conversely, a team can choose to use a pick it traded for already in the supplemental draft. The Jets, for example, have three first-round picks for next year. So they could use their own (which is in the top tier), or the Colts or Cowboys picks (both in the second tier) they acquired last year, in the first round this year.

Making all of this even more interesting is how the perceived lack of depth and quality in the 2026 draft pushed a handful of teams to either take smaller swings (Cardinals, Jets, Browns) or not take quarterbacks at all (Dolphins) in April, essentially keeping their powder dry for next year. Meanwhile, you could add teams like the Steelers or Colts that might not have pathways to taking a QB high in the first round in the next couple of years to the list of potential suitors, and all of a sudden there’s a crowd in the Sorsby pool.

After playing in 11 games in two seasons (one redshirt) for Indiana, Sorsby started the last two seasons at Cincinnati. — Nov 29, 2025; Fort Worth, Texas, USA; Cincinnati Bearcats quarterback Brendan Sorsby (2) warms up before the game against the TCU Horned Frogs at Amon G. Carter Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

I’d think all of those teams would at least give him a look as a guy, who, with a huge 2026, could’ve landed in the top five in 2027, and they might be able to get him for what they’d project to be either a late first-round pick or a second-rounder. What comes out of that "look” of teams take will be a pretty big part of the equation.

“Just the limited tape I saw,” said one AFC assistant GM, “he looked better than Ty [Simpson]. The accuracy was better, and he’s an athlete who can run and extend plays. That combination of athleticism, accuracy and arm, he looked like a guy who could be a threat with his feet, extend plays and throw off-platform—plus he’s accurate from the pocket.”

“I hate to say it, you hate to make this comparison to [Patrick] Mahomes and Caleb [Williams], but he has that twitch, the arm angles of [Matthew] Stafford,” said one NFC offensive coordinator. “His arm is electric. It would’ve been by far the best in this [2026] class. Zach Wilson’s arm was that way, extremely talented, too. As a thrower, his arm would be top eight or so in the league.”

The other part of the equation, of course, will be how the NFL handles this—and whether it tried to levy a suspension on Sorsby should he enter the supplemental draft like it did on Pryor in 2011. That, for what it’s worth, could be another fight where the lawyers get involved.

But, again, the bigger one that likely will determine whether he’s in college or the pros two months from now, comes today.

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