The Brendan Sorsby saga has taken another unprecedented turn.
After being declared ineligible by the NCAA for wagering on college sports and then receiving a temporary injunction that made him eligible to play for Texas Tech this fall, the star quarterback has reportedly applied for entry in the NFL Supplemental Draft.
Sorsby, scandal aside, is regarded as one of the more talented QB prospects in the country, bringing great attention to if — and where — he will play in 2026.
The NFL hasn’t had a player selected in its Supplemental Draft since the Arizona Cardinals used a fifth-round pick on safety Jalen Thompson in 2019.
Could an NFL team find a similar bargain in Sorsby this summer? We’ve examined his biggest strengths and weaknesses, where he ranks as a draft prospect, his pro comps and his best NFL team fits.
Amid all the off-field transgressions, Brendan Sorsby will be coveted by certain NFL clubs — once he’s available. (Photo by Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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Strengths
At a solid 6-foot-3, 235 pounds, Sorsby certainly looks the part of an NFL quarterback. And he possesses both the arm and athleticism to star at the highest level, as well.
In today’s era of simplified offenses, statistics can certainly be misleading. Sorsby’s numbers speak for themselves, however. He completed 61.4% of his passes for 7,208 yards and 60 touchdowns against 18 interceptions over 35 combined games at Cincinnati (2024-25) and Indiana (2022-23) while rushing for another 1,295 yards and 22 touchdowns.
He has plenty of arm strength to make every throw in the playbook and is a gifted, creative passer who can throw from various arm slots. He has excellent touch on intermediate throws, consistently “dropping it in the bucket” on fades and verticals. Sorsby can ramp up the RPMs and fire deep crossers and deep outs with precision, as well. Frankly, the arm talent is undeniable.
As his rushing totals suggest, Sorsby is also a real threat as a runner. Cincinnati and Indiana both wisely called plenty of QB runs for him, but he isn’t reliant on them to keep the defense honest. He shows patience in the pocket and looks to exhaust his downfield passing opportunities before dropping his eyes to scramble — but when he does so, Sorsby can scoot. He accelerates smoothly and has good lateral agility to elude, as well as the body armor to absorb the occasional tackle. He is a competitive runner with good vision and understanding of where he is on the field, scrambling for first downs 109 times over the past three years.
Sorsby plays with a swagger that will appeal to NFL teams. He showed steady development over his three seasons as a starter and looked like a future first-round pick at Cincinnati last year. Perhaps most importantly, he showed maturity and humility in publicly admitting his gambling addiction and recently completed a 35-day inpatient rehabilitation stint at Algamus, a respected gambling treatment facility in Goodyear, Ari.
Sorsby is an excellent runner, adding 22 touchdowns on the ground in his college career. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)
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Weaknesses
The concerns with Sorsby are just as obvious as his talent, though most of them are off the field.
The quarterback position demands leadership, accountability and selflessness. Some NFL teams may have a hard time believing Sorsby possesses enough of these to justify a draft pick.
He is an admitted gambling addict who bet thousands of times, including on Indiana while he played for the Hoosiers. He used family and friends’ names as a proxies to bet, clearly attempting to evade NCAA rules.
Scouts looking to vet Sorsby may find few advocates.
Though Curt Cignetti and many of his coaches were not yet at Indiana when Sorsby played there, others who were there may be hesitant to sully the reputation of the defending national champion Hoosiers. The program, itself, sounded like one seeking to distance itself from Sorsby with a short, terse statement to The Daily Hoosier following the discovery of his gambling.
And given that the University of Cincinnati filed a million-dollar lawsuit against him for violating the 18-month NIL contract he signed following his Indiana transfer, Sorsby may not have many Bearcats supporters, either.
His former teammates at Cincinnati might feel similarly given that Sorsby opted out of the 2026 Liberty Bowl versus Navy, a Jan. 2nd game the Bearcats lost 35-13 while generating just 12 total first downs on offense.
Frankly, interested NFL teams will ultimately spend more time evaluating Sorsby’s character than his weaknesses on tape. But like with any young quarterback, he certainly has flaws.
There are times when Sorsby considerably drops his arm slot, which could become an issue in the NFL. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
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Sorsby shows good accuracy to all levels of the field, but some of his deep balls do flutter a bit, providing defenders a chance to recover. A couple of his interceptions this past season came on deep balls that hung in the air, notably including one in the final seconds of Cincinnati’s season-opener at Nebraska, where Sorsby was intercepted at the goal line to seal a 20-17 loss.
While I like his ability to drop his arm angle and throw around defenders as well as over them, Sorsby often needlessly resorts to more of a slingshot, sidearm release that effectively makes him a much shorter passer and more likely to have passes batted down at the line of scrimmage in the NFL. Like most quarterbacks at this stage of their careers, Sorsby can get a touch panicky when the rush is getting home and his accuracy diminishes when his feet aren’t set.
As a runner, he often carries the ball with just one hand and, despite what his statistics suggest, he has struggled a bit with fumbles. While losing “just” five fumbles over his college career, Sorsby actually put the ball on the ground 12 times on 294 career attempts, per PFF.
Draft Range
There was not a player in the 2026 draft class with a higher ceiling and lower floor than Sorsby, so projecting where he would have been selected is a more complicated hypothetical than it might appear.
Let me explain.
Sorsby is a more physically gifted and significantly more experienced quarterback than Alabama product Ty Simpson. If the former didn’t come with the off-field complexities noted above, I believe he could have been drafted before Simpson, who surprisingly went No. 13 overall to the Los Angeles Rams.
This isn’t to suggest that the Rams specifically would rank Sorsby over Simpson. As noted prior to the draft, I thought Simpson — an accurate and quick-thinking pocket passer — was a particularly clean fit for Los Angeles.
While it’s unlikely Brendan Sorsby would have been selected ahead of Fernando Mendoza had he declared for the 2026 NFL Draft, Sorsby’s ceiling might be higher. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
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For the record, I do not believe that Sorsby would have challenged Fernando Mendoza as the Las Vegas Raiders’ No. 1 overall selection had he declared. Sorsby’s traits and ascending game would have attracted plenty of other suitors after Mendoza, however, including perhaps the New York Jets at No. 2 overall and the Cardinals at No. 3.
But, of course, Sorsby does have character concerns, and NFL clubs may have known — or at least suspected — of them prior to the draft. (Reports of him being under NCAA investigation for sports gambling surfaced just days after the draft.) So, it’s also quite possible that he would have tumbled.
Ultimately, though, the upside of a cheap contract for a starting caliber quarterback would just be too tempting for some clubs. I’m guessing someone would have thrown a Day 2 dart, at minimum.
As for the 2027 draft, which Sorsby could still find himself in, the competition is considerably stiffer. In my way-too-early 2027 mock, I had five QBs coming off the board in the first round, and all by the No. 14 overall pick: Arch Manning (No. 1, Dolphins), Dante Moore (No. 2, Cardinals), Sam Leavitt (No. 4, Browns), Julian Sayin (No. 12, Jets) and LaNorris Sellers (No. 14, Steelers). Also of note, FOX Sports’ Joel Klatt ranked quarterbacks C.J. Carr and Trinidad Chambliss among his initial top-10 prospects in the 2027 class.
There’s still obviously much to sort out with Sorsby, but as of today, I’d slot him behind most of this group and peg him as a second-round pick for 2027.
Arch Manning remains the consensus choice to be the first QB taken in the 2027 NFL Draft. (Photo by Kenneth Richmond/Getty Images)
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Best NFL Team Fits
My best NFL comp for Sorsby right now is a cross between Baker Mayfield and Jaxson Dart. It makes him suitable for several teams around the league. Chief among them: the Cardinals, Jets, Colts, Dolphins, Texans, Buccaneers, Ravens, Cowboys, Vikings and Steelers.
With three first-round picks in their pocket for next year, the Jets are in an excellent position to invest their second-round pick nine months early and aggressively outbid several other teams that might be willing to gamble only mid-round selections in the Supplemental Draft.
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