Tom Pelissero on the Odds QB Brendan Sorsby Enters NFL’s Supplemental Draft

Tom Pelissero opened the reporter's notebook on The Rich Eisen Show with two stories that had nothing to do with each other on the surface, except they both pointed at the same thing. The 2027 NFL Draft just got more interesting.

First, Pelissero put numbers on the wave of trades that everyone expected to see in this year's first round. There were eight trades in round one. Combined, those trades involved a grand total of 22 spots. Not a single 2027 first-round pick changed hands. Not a single 2027 second-round pick changed hands. The only 2027 third-round pick that moved went out in the Jonathan Grenard veteran-player deal.

"The fact that teams regard the 2027 draft as highly as they do for overall talent and for quarterback play," Pelissero said, made the impact he had anticipated. Front offices were guarding their future picks. Pelissero pointed to John Schneider and other GMs who said the only offers on the table required them to fall back so far that the math stopped working without giving up future capital nobody was willing to part with.

That sets up the second half of the notebook, and it is a strange one. The supplemental draft, normally held at the end of June, has not produced a player in seven years. It has not produced a first-rounder, by Pelissero's recollection, since Dave Brown went to the Giants in 1992. With NIL changing eligibility patterns, recent supplemental drafts have not even been held.

That may be about to change.

Pelissero pointed to Brennan Sorsby, the former Cincinnati quarterback now at Texas Tech. As Pete Thamel reported, Sorsby is under NCAA investigation for gambling and has voluntarily checked himself into a treatment center for roughly five weeks. Pelissero said Sorsby placed many bets, a small number of which were on his own Indiana team before he was even on the travel roster four years ago, with bets to cover that, in his words, did not in any of those cases come through.

The NCAA, Pelissero explained, has two paths. The clean one is a negotiated settlement, similar to how the NFL handles these cases. Three games, six games, whatever it lands at, plus repayment of part of his contract, and the matter is closed. The other path is the NCAA dropping the hammer and daring Sorsby to sue. That sends the case into court for weeks or months.

If Sorsby is ruled ineligible, Pelissero said, he has a choice. He can fight in court at significant personal expense with no guarantee of winning back his eligibility. Or he can apply for the NFL supplemental draft. The league would have to decide whether to grant him an exemption, but Pelissero noted that a change in eligibility would normally qualify.

In his quarterback research this year, Pelissero said, the conversation kept circling back to the same question. If some of the other 2027 quarterbacks had come out this year, would Fernando Mendoza still have been QB1. The names that came up included Dante Moore, who took significant money to return to Oregon, and Sorsby, who multiple evaluators had given a first-round grade. If Sorsby enters the supplemental draft, Pelissero said, he would likely become the highest-drafted supplemental pick in decades.

Pelissero closed with a warning aimed at any athlete watching. If you gamble inside a facility, your phone pings. Your name pops up. You will get caught. It is a 100 percent chance. That is the reality of where things are now.