Questions loom after Sorsby applies for sup. draft
Mike Florio discusses his biggest questions after Brendan Sorsby announced his intention to be in the NFL supplemental draft, including whether the league will even allow him and more.
Video Transcript
The supplemental draft had been irrelevant for seven years.
They had one in 2023, no one was picked.
The last time someone was selected, 2019.
There have been multiple recognizable names over the years who have entered the NFL through the supplemental draft.
It has become something that is used less and less frequently in these days.
But it will be a major topic in the coming days and weeks as Brendan Spears be- decides to abandon his attempt to play college football and applies for the supplemental draft.
And there are a lot of questions, and I've talked about some of this stuff before, but I think this is a good moment to really frame up the three big questions going forward from this point.
Number one, will the NFL accept Brandon Spears be- Brendan Spears be, excuse me, into the supplemental draft?
There's no reason for them not to.
He's no longer eligible to play college football.
He was eligible to play college football back in April when the regular draft happened.
And the way the CBA is written, if a player becomes ineligible after this, the regular draft, he can enter the supplemental draft.
And he meets all the other criteria.
He's at least three years out of high school.
That's the one big one.
So there's nothing that should keep him out.
That doesn't mean the NFL won't try to find a way to do it.
The NFL's been tight-lipped about this one, so we don't know what they are thinking.
The way the CBA is written, you could make the argument, if you want to try to keep Brendan Spears be out, that he knew or should have known he was ineligible in advance of the most recent regular draft, and he should have entered that draft.
He could have.
He's got the time in.
He could have declared for it.
He had reason to know he may not be able to play in 2026 because he's aware of his gambling habits, his gambling activities, his violation of gambling laws because he was gambling when he was under the age of 21, and his violation rampant and repeated violation of NCAA bylaws.
Now, that would be a very aggressive argument for the NFL to make, but that would be based on my reading of the CBA, the only thing they could do if they really want to just kick this can until April of next year.
They could do that.
They could say, you knew or at a minimum should have known you had lost your eligibility.
It just wasn't official yet.
You should have entered the regular draft in April, and you decided to try to get two bites out of the apple.
You decided to try to keep your eligibility, fight the NCAA, and then when the walls closed in legally, you changed your mind and you voted for the NFL.
That's not me talking.
That's what the NFL would say if they were to make that argument, that he knew or should have known he was eligible for the regular draft and therefore he can't choose his draft.
He can't pick which draft he gets selected in.
Can't try to have it both ways, trying to stay in college, and then if all else fails, I'll go to the NFL draft.
And clearly, once this thing became an issue, he was trying to get clarity from the NCAA so he could make that decision.
Are you gonna let me play?
I want to play at Texas Tech.
Are you gonna let me play?
No.
All right, I got an injunction that says you have to let me play.
Problem solved.
Then other lawsuits get filed.
The heat got a little too hot for Texas Tech and Soares be, I think, sensitive to what Texas Tech has been going through.
He pulls the plug and he has the supplemental draft.
I think they should let him in.
But if they want to be ultra-aggressive, they could make that argument that he'd already lost his eligibility and he knew it, and it became a shell game after that for him to try to get one more year of college football, one more year of NIL money before coming to the NFL.
Second question, will he be suspended by the NFL?
You let him into the supplemental draft, and then you impose a suspension for violation of the law, underage betting, and rampant violations of the NCAA gambling rules.
That one's a little trickier.
I've mentioned the Terrell Pryor precedent several times.
He had a five-game suspension imposed on him for the 2011 season.
He ended up entering the supplemental draft.
The NFL imposed the same five-game suspension, arguing that he manipulated the eligibility rules in a way that undermines the integrity of them.
It wouldn't be very difficult for the NFL to come up with something if it wants to, to make the case that betting while under the age of 21, repeatedly, betting on your team, even if you weren't playing in games, that that requires the same punishment he's escaping by leaving the NCAA.
Now, it's not a perfect argument, and most legal arguments aren't.
That's why there's two sides to every story.
One side tries to fashion an argument rooted in relevant, applicable rules language that suits their interest.
The other side goes the other way.
Good lawyers can come up with compelling arguments on both sides of a question.
But if the NFL really wants to be not full out aggressive and keep him out of the supplemental draft, welcome him in, but suspend him, what's to stop them?
He's not protected by the union until he's drafted or signs an NFL contract.
So they could, and this where, this is where the, the timing of a suspension becomes interesting.
You suspend him before he's drafted, what standing would the union have at that point to do anything?
None.
Once he's drafted, the union has the ability to fight it.
I don't know that the NFL will try to split the hairs that carefully.
They may just wait and see if he's drafted.
Now, I think he will be more on that in a second, but it could be the NFL doesn't do anything about a possible suspension until it has to, and it doesn't have to until after he's drafted.
So the Terrell Pryor case from two thousand eleven could make a suspension more likely for Soresby.
And I know that there are teams that are concerned they're going to draft this guy and he's not going to be available at all in twenty twenty-six.
So what's the point in giving up the draft pick early if you don't get the benefit of the player early?
Another item that I believe I mentioned here, and I wrote something about it today at PFT, Kayshaun Butty.
Very similar case.
Gambling addiction, admitted to it, wrote an article for the Players Tribune earlier this year between conference championships, I believe, and the Super Bowl.
He was drafted by the Patriots in twenty twenty-three.
After his rookie season, it came to light that he was being arrested for underage gambling in Louisiana.
Made at least six bets on LSU while he was on the LSU team.
The charges were later dropped, and the NFL did nothing.
Nothing.
Now, the big difference is he was already in the NFL for a season.
And from a PR standpoint, so much of this stuff really is PR, the decisions the NFL makes from a disciplinary standpoint.
The personal conduct policy in and of itself is a PR tool.
It's not a judicial tool.
It's a quasi-judicial device to enhance and promote and support the NFL's PR efforts.
But if you act against Butty after he's been in the NFL for a full season, you draw attention to the fact that you had no idea.
What kind of vetting are you guys doing when you have no idea that this guy who you have welcomed into the draft class was rampantly and repeatedly gambling?
So I could see why the NFL decides not to do anything with Butty because he's already in the NFL.
But with Soresby, it's front and center.
It's a big deal.
In the aftermath of last week's court ruling, it was one of the biggest stories in sports.
So even though what they didn't do with Kayshaun Butty would seem to apply and would seem to suggest they shouldn't do anything with Brendan Soresby, the difference is they know about Soresby before he ever plays.
And we, we know, we know how the NFL operates.
This isn't criticism, it's reality.
They do whatever they want to do, case by case.
They don't like to be bound by precedent.
They don't like to have third parties making decisions based on past practices and fairness, et cetera.
They just want to do what they think is right in this case.
What is right for us right now?
Right now, this is a big deal.
A lot of questions about integrity of sport and big headlines and a lot of discussion, and let's just take some of the steam out of this.
And also, as I've said before, they may want to placate the NCAA.
If the NCAA doesn't want this guy to play in twenty twenty-six, if they view it as a punishment, he shouldn't be allowed to play in twenty twenty-six.
If that's conveyed directly or indirectly, overtly or subtly to the NFL, they may feel compelled to, to act accordingly.
The last bit of precedent, and this is from a question that a reader asked.
I had forgotten about this.
When Jim Harbaugh left Michigan for his return to the NFL, at one point, Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, which at the time was owned and operated by the league, said basically, if Harbaugh comes back, he's going to get suspended because he's subject to suspension by the NCAA.
Well, that never happened.
There was never anything.
There was never even a serious conversation publicly about the possibility of Harbaugh suffering any consequences for the various things that went on when he was at Michigan.
So if I'm arguing on behalf of Brendan Soresby, I'm pointing to Harbaugh and I'm pointing to Kayshaun Butty, and I'm pointing out that what they did to Terrell Pryor in fifteen years ago shouldn't have happened.
And as we reported last night, Jeffrey Kessler already putting the NFL on notice, I'm told, that he's going to make sure that they don't try to either not accept him into the supplemental draft or suspend him once he gets there.
Now, the bigger question is this, and this relates to what happens if he's allowed into the supplemental draft and it's time for the teams to start figuring out what they're going to do.
And the procedure, I found this in an SI article from about the time this all first came up.
They split the league into three categories, teams with six or fewer wins or fewer than six wins, teams with six or more wins that didn't make the playoffs, and then all the teams that made the playoffs.
So you have three buckets of teams.
They do a weighted lottery, so there really is an NFL draft lottery.
We just didn't, we didn't really know about it.
They haven't monetized it yet.
It's not a tentpole event yet.
The supplemental draft lottery, but they do a lottery to s- determine who's got priority among those three buckets, and then each round the team decides ahead of time, am I basically gonna bid?
It's like a silent auction.
I'm gonna bid this pick, and you bid it for, let's say, round three.
Well, if you have priority as opposed to the other teams that made the bid, you get him.
That's a dynamic that could get someone who maybe made the playoffs last year or got close to it think, better go a round earlier if I want this guy.
So if the consensus is he's round three, you may have to go round two to get him if you're gonna be low in the priority list.
But everybody will know what their priority is, so that's part of the, the guessing game that a team is gonna need to make.
Do I pull the trigger this round, or do I wait until next round because next round somebody higher in the pecking order may get him before we can?
