Pocket Presence: Tuesday Open Thread

I mean, the scouting reports do say he’s good escaping pressure…

Brendan Sorsby, who should be a third-line winger for the Manitoba Moose if nominative determinism was real, has registered for the NFL Supplemental Draft.

In case you’ve been paying attention to sports that are actually playing, Sorsby is/was the incoming transfer quarterback for the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Sorsby is coming off two good years with the University of Cincinnati Bearcats, and was widely expected to be a second-day draft pick in 2027.

Nothing else happening. Nope. Not much else, unless you want to get sued by Texas Attorney General.

Sorsby has admitted to placing over $90,000 of bets through friends and family members’ online gaming accounts while an NCAA player. This includes at least 40 bets on Indiana football (games and individual player performance) while he was on the Hoosiers football team.

The NCAA suspended him for the season, as you would expect. A friendly North Texas semi-retired judge decided to grant an injunction against the NCAA, unilaterally change it to a two game suspension against the paid cupcakes of TTU’s schedule, impose conditions like Sorsby was on supervised release (attend gambling addiction treatment, etc) and somehow prohibit the NCAA from imposing punishment if Sorsby played in games and was subsequently deemed ineligible. I do not practice in Texas, and I understand that they are only just now moving beyond “Trial by Showdown” in their legal system’s development. But in an era of extraordinary court orders, this was such an incredible overreach on a preliminary injunction that I was expecting the appellate ruling to break the sound barrier in being handed down.

Sorsby’s legal team apparently shared my skepticism that the ruling would stand, and instead invoked the Carroll-Harbaugh Manuever: jump to the pros to avoid college sanctions. The NFL Supplemental Draft, which takes place on June 22, allows players (generally ones facing down ineligibility for the coming year) to be selected by teams in exchange for a 2027 draft pick. In what is essentially a sealed-bidding auction, teams submit the highest round pick they are willing to give up, and highest bid wins. Priority within a round (e.g. two different teams both bid third round picks) is determined by some NBA/NHL-style weighted lottery, with priority generally going to teams with worse 2026 records.

In the 21st Century, 15 players have been selected this way. Two have made the Pro Bowl, one of whom was Josh Gordon. Gordon, you may remember, later crashed out for the same reason he went into the Supplemental Draft in the first place- drugs. This is a recurring theme on the modern list.

Sorsby is a fascinating pressure test for The New College Sports Order when corruption, grift, and self-dealing are having A Moment at the highest levels of American government and international business. He was already one of the high profile test cases, having been sued by the University of Cincinnati for $1 million for violating his employment cont…er, Name/Image/Likeness agreement in jumping to Texas Tech for $4-5 million more. Now he gets to be the poster child for Online Gambling in College Sports.

Frankly, I think the NCAA is disappointed that this situation has been rendered largely moot by Sorby’s decision. It’s been taking a severe (and well-deserved) kicking in courts for the last 5+ years. This was probably the best fact pattern they could hope for to reverse that trend and reassert authority over their crumbling kingdom- a player placing bets on his teammates strikes most people as Inherently Bad, but since Sorsby didn’t play in any of the games he bet on (as far as we know) it doesn’t bring the integrity of the game into direct dispute. Basically, this was likely the NCAA’s best chance to convince a high court that it still has some authority to regulate athlete eligibility. If it can’t even police competitive integrity, it’s as impotent as Stephen Miller without a brown immigrant child to abuse.

No doubt collateral litigation will continue, but unless the NCAA tries to punish Cincy or Indiana for playing an ineligible player, I expect everything to be quietly settled at the college level.

Despite the cataclysmic consequence of a potential Sorsby relapse (plus the dark mutterings every time he sails one to the sideline to clinch the Under), some dumbfuck team will take a chance here and try to sell it as a “he’s a good boy, we’re just giving him a chance at redemption” story. It worked for Kansas City with Tyreek Hill, and every GM/owner thinks he is smart enough to look Sorsby in the eye and Judge His Character. At least insofar as letting them do what they want to do anyway.

Looking at you, Rooney.

What The Rog will do is anyone’s guess. It is unclear whether he has authority to impose discipline for acts in college under the Personal Conduct Policy. On the other hand, the NFL has been very definite that any conduct that threatens the public perception of the game’s integrity and endangers either the core business or the lucrative relationships with online gambling will be met with Heavy Retribution. At the absolute least, the League should have a team of technicians crawling up Sorsby’s digital urethra from Day 1 to make certain he’s not relapsing.

Early favorites include the League’s three dumbest franchises: Arizona, Cleveland and the Jets, as they each have the means (reasonable draft capital) motive (not one has a functional NFL starter on the roster) and opportunity (the insane piss-poor judgment that got them here in the first place).

-Cleveland has two firsts, a bunch of fourth and fifth rounders, and the bloody-minded determination to have the most problematic quarterback room in history.

-Arizona is projected to start Gardner Minshew at quarterback, because their even older, even more journeyman first stringer (Jacoby Brissett) is holding out. They have all their draft picks, but are a. assuming they will get one of the four-ish top quarterbacks in the 2027 draft, and b. have displayed an absolute willingness to tank this season trying to wait out the current logjam at the top of the NFC West.

-The Jets are flush with draft capital and are shadow-run by a teenage dumbfuck nepobro who is the walking, talking personification of the Rich Kid Who Loses Money on Crypto/NFTs/AI. Smart Money would look at 3 first rounders, mark the highest one as your QB selection and move on. The Jets think they are slick, however, and have visions of getting their QB in Sorsby for a second (maybe a third) and using all three first rounders on “skill” players.

-Miami is my darkhorse here. They have some draft capital and an owner who has zero compunction about using questionable tactics to try and get the quarterback he wants (see Tom Brady tampering). He’s also old as balls and wants to win (then sell the team) before he dies. He doesn’t care if the entire team gets executed by firing squad in four years if it means he got what he wanted.