Albert Breer on Why NFL DENIED Brendan Sorsby, AFC Regression Teams, Marvin Harrison Jr.’s Struggles

All right.

Welcome in to the Brew Report for June 24th, a mailbag edition of the Brew Report.

As always, you can get more answers to more of your questions on the MMPQB.

com with the print edition of the mailbag.

But right here, right now, we're gonna answer three of your questions as we always do.

We'll start with need coffee, that's at Moses_Fabella.

Uh, Moses asks, uh, now that the Goodell said no, To the supplemental, what's next for Soarsby?

I think this is a question a lot of people are asking right now.

Um, and I think it's gonna start with some sort of legal action against the NFL from Soarsby's camp.

Um, Soarsby's lawyer who's been a thorn in the side of the NFL for decades.

This is going back to the 1980s, Jeffrey Kessler.

Who's been at the forefront of strikes and lockouts, um, for the union.

Um, he said in an email, um, that he sent over to me and several others, um, that the plan is to challenge, um, the ruling here and how they go about that is obviously the next question, whether they do it through the NFLPA of which, um, Swarsby is not a part.

Um, that's a fair question to ask, but there's certainly Um, a world here where, you know, Soarsby could take this to court and challenge it and win in court.

The question is how long would that take, how costly would it be, and would it be worth it in the end, um, over declaring for the 2027 draft.

And that's all stuff that everyone involved is gonna have to weigh.

Obviously, it's costly going through the process and that's a big piece of this.

Um, you know, but logistically what it would look like here is that Um, Soresby would challenge on the, uh, the, the structure of the, of the supplemental draft and the history of the NFL and letting people into the supplemental draft .

And for people who don't know, the supplemental draft is set up for players who lose their eligibility between the time um when they can declare for the April draft and the beginning of the NFL season.

So if you lose your eligibility in that window, Um, you have the right to apply for entry into the supplemental draft.

The NFL isn't under an obligation to stage a supplemental draft, but if you look over the course of the years and the rules have tightened, um, but if you look at the over the course of the years, you'll see that lots of players who've lost their eligibility have been let into the supplemental draft.

I can't think, at least in my time covering the league of a single person until Soresby who was denied entry into the supplemental draft.

Um, and we've seen guys.

Who've been ruled ineligible for drug reasons, Josh Gordon.

We've seen guys who've been ruled ineligible for NCAA rules violations, Terrell Pryor.

We've seen guys um ruled ineligible for academic reasons over and over and over again.

Former Niners linebacker Ahmad Brooks would be a great example of that.

All these guys have been let into the supplemental draft, and it's on the premise that these guys at that point, have nowhere else to go.

And that's exactly the spot that Sosby's in now.

He, of course, withdrew his appeal, uh, or withdrew his lawsuit against the NCAA challenging the NCAA's ruling, um, that he loses his eligibility.

Um, and so when he withdrew that lawsuit, you know, now there's no avenue to go back into college football.

Um, and clearly the NFL is now trying to block his, his, his, his path into the pros .

And there are some interesting, uh, pieces of case precedent here.

Um, one, of course, would be Kayshaw Booty who was allowed to enter the NFL and hasn't been punished by the NFL despite admitting to having a real gambling problem when he was in college.

You know, on the flip side, a piece of case precedent in the NFL's favor would be that the NFL was able to keep Maurice Clorette and Mike Williams from entering the draft and um at, at, at the end of um Clorette's lawsuit against the NCAA against the NFL.

Um, and if you guys remember, you go back and, you know, we're going back 2025 years.

Now, there's always been a perception.

That when someone challenged whoever it was, the the NFL's 3-year rule, which states that you have to be 3 years separate from your high school graduation to enter the NFL draft, that the floodgates would be open and that the NFL wouldn't be able to keep freshmen and sophomores or even high school seniors from declaring for its draft.

That's not the way it went.

The, the, the, the, the court actually ruled that because the NFL and its players have had, had agreed to the 3-year rule because it was collectively bargained, the rule was valid and Claret would have to wait until 3 years after his high school graduation, which was 2005, wind up having a profound effect on his career and his life.

Um, to enter the draft.

So that's a case where a football player who is not yet a part of the NFLPA was subject to NFLPA rules.

So that would be the piece of case precedent the NFL would use here.

Of course, Sosby would argue that um he has already taken on a heavy, heavy penalty.

He's lost the money, he's gonna make at Texas Tech this year.

He lost the opportunity to play college football in the fall, he lost the opportunity potentially to play his way into the top five of the draft in 2027.

Um, we're talking about potentially losing maybe $50 million guaranteed if he had played really well this fall.

Um, so he's already lost a lot.

Um, he's already been sanctioned, and, um, what his side will argue here is that the NFL because he is not part of the union yet yet.

is out of his jurisdiction in, in, in, in, in sanctioning Sos and keeping him out of the supplemental draft.

So, again, it's a complicated case.

I hope I was clear enough in explaining it.

There's a lot of legalese that's, um, that, that you need to wade through to get a clearer picture on all of this.

Um, you know, but I, I think the, the, the, the, the long and short of it now is that this is handed over to the lawyers.

And now the lawyers are gonna figure out what's next, and I, I don't think Swordsby's given up trying to get into the NFL .

It's important to note too, in the case of Terrell Pryor, um, and we're going back 15 years now, uh, the NFL did hold.

The supplemental draft.

Part of this was because of the lockout at the end of August, um, after there was some back and forth there and some negotiation there where they landed on a five-game suspension.

I certainly think, and I think that they should have probably tried to do this beforehand, but I certainly think Sosby's side could, could try to negotiate a suspension with the NFL.

Um, you know, I think that they, that, that, that, that, that So side will be trying to find a way for him to get to the NFL now rather than sitting out the year.

We'll see or not, we'll see whether or not they can find a pathway into the NFL, uh, but a lot of uncertainty clearly ahead.

Question number 2, this is from Clayton Anderson, that's at Clay_HTXsports.

Uh, Clayton asks which AFC powerhouse is most primed for aggression in 2026 cause this is a Houston person.

I think you're probably hoping that I'll say Jacksonville.

Um, you know, I think Jacksonville and the Patriots are two teams that a lot of people are gonna be watching because of the uptick.

I'd actually say looking at the bigger landscape of the AFC .

There's more of a chance of teams rebounding than there is of a bunch of teams falling back , right?

So, you look at some of the teams that had quarterback issues last year, that had down years last year, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Kansas City to a degree, um, you know, I would , I would look at, you know, the, the, the, the Buffalo Bills, a team that like that window was open for them and they had kind of a wonky year too.

Uh, so I think you'll see a lot of those teams rebounding.

As for a team that, you know, is gonna regress, I, I think New England because of the, the strength of the quarterback position, um, because of the strength of the coaching staff, I, I think New England's on solid ground, maybe to fall a game or two back , 3 games back, 4 games back of where they were, but I think they'll still be a really good team.

Um, Jacksonville, I think, you know, has a good foundation.

So while they could regress a little bit, I don't think they're gonna completely fall off the table.

The one that I think you can kind of look at and just look at the age of the roster and say they're kind of walking a tightrope now is Pittsburgh.

And, you know, TJ Watts in his 30s, uh, you know, the, the, the Cam Hayward, obviously at the very back end of his career, Jalen Ramsey's in his 30s.

Um, you know, DK Metcalf's got a lot of mileage on his body.

They bring in a couple of older vets, um, you know, in, in free agency and via trade and Michael Pittman and Jimmel Dean, and Rico Dowdell.

And that's a team that's got a lot of age before you even get to the fact that their quarterback.

You know, he's going into his 22nd NFL season.

And so, if you're looking at a team where it's like a couple of things go wrong and they could kind of fall apart a little bit, it might be Pittsburgh.

But I don't know if there's like some team that's gonna, you know, all of a sudden fall to 3 or 4.

Wins.

That was a really good team last year.

Finally, question number 3, this is from MC that's at Meadow Brown.

Uh, this one's in your wheelhouse.

Why is Marvin Harrison Jr.

once heralded as one of the best wide receivers of this era of the Ohio State wide receivers, been the worst one in the NFL among the first-round picks.

I think you're probably right that he has been the worst one.

when you look at the guys who have gone in the first round, we're talking Garrett Wilson.

Um, you know, Chris Olave, uh, you know, Omeka Abuka, I think he flashed more potential early on than Harrison has, and I'll be honest with everybody here, I'm surprised by the results.

Like I thought Marvin Harrison was gonna come in and be a dominant player pretty quickly in the NFL.

Um, you know, I do think that like, if you look at the history of it, and this is really interesting, somebody at the Cardinals brought this up to me last year.

Bigger receivers are a little, take a little longer to translate to the NFL because they have to do a little bit more to get open at the NFL level and there's a little less space for them to be physically dominant the way they were in college, whereas, if you're one of these faster guys that was drafted at the top of the first round, being able to run by people, that doesn't really change.

The windows might be smaller, but they, you don't, there's not as much of an adjustment for a player like that coming into the NFL.

I think the other piece of it is where he went, you know, and, and, and going to Arizona and, you know, having a coaching staff that was walking the Green Mile last year and, um, you know, the quarterback situation being what it was, um, I just think there were so many moving parts there.

So it's gonna be interesting this year with Michael Fleur there now, um, you know, with a different quarterback situation, with a different offense coming in.

Um, it'll be interesting to see what happens with Marvin Harrison Junior, cause I do know that he is an incredibly motivated guy.

I, I think, you know, he has the goal of being one of the greatest to ever play the position.

Um, you know, obviously, the bloodlines are there, and I still wouldn't close the book on Marvin Harrison Jr.

but I'd agree, you know, through 2 years, he certainly isn't what I had thought he was gonna be when I was watching him over those 2 years that he completely dominated college football at Ohio State.

Appreciate you guys coming out as always, you can leave your comments down below.

Questions too.

You can also get to me on my social media at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert R Breer on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram.

We will see you one more time this week for another Breer Report.