The NFL puts its foot down by denying Brendan Sorsby a supplemental draft

On Tuesday, the NFL did what the NCAA could not: It made certain that Brendan Sorsby won’t play college — or pro — football this fall.

The league told Sorsby and his legal team that it will not be holding a supplemental draft this year, which means there is no avenue for him to enter the NFL before the traditional April draft in 2027. The league also released the letter from Larry Ferazani, general counsel of the NFL Management Council, that outlined the myriad reasons why.

To sum it up: Betting on your own team is a no-go. Breaking sports betting rules and laws is a no-no. You don’t get to play football when you call into question the integrity of its games.

It’s worth reading the whole letter, though, because of how fully Ferazani eviscerated Sorsby, both for the series of actions he’s taken in recent months to evade punishment for breaking the NCAA’s anti-sports gambling rules and the way he approached the supplemental draft itself. He didn’t pull punches.

Ferazani noted that the NFL does not have a complete record of the NCAA’s investigation into Sorsby and that Sorsby’s team did not supply any such material, either. But the NFL is aware of reported information that Sorsby “knowingly engaged in repeated and significant violations of NCAA rules designed to preserve the integrity of athletic competition” and that he “may have violated state criminal law.”

“Your Petition does not address these matters,” Ferazani wrote. “Nor does it demonstrate accountability for your conduct or indicate whether, or how, you would adhere to the League’s rules and policies governing the integrity of competition. Instead, even after receiving notice of the NCAA’s decision rescinding your college eligibility in May, you sought to avoid the consequences of that determination through litigation rather than accepting responsibility for your actions, and you pursued entry into the NFL only after abandoning those efforts.”

Ding, ding, ding!

This is what the NCAA can’t say, because it doesn’t have nearly the same power that the NFL does. This is a message Roger Goodell can send that Charlie Baker can’t. Sorsby’s lack of accountability — and his lack of remorse — have rubbed everyone the wrong way. It’s impossible to ignore Sorsby’s behavior since finding out the NCAA was investigating him for violations of its sports betting policy.

Yes, he came clean and admitted to what he did. Yes, he checked himself into a treatment facility. But what else has he done? Well, he refused to accept that the NCAA ruled him ineligible, filing a lawsuit in state court where he’d hoped to find a friendly judge who could essentially overrule the NCAA. He tried to use mental health as a get-out-of-jail-free card, arguing that he needed to be part of a football team and surrounded by support and structure to work through his gambling addiction and anxiety disorder. (He never acknowledged that he could do all those things without playing in football games on Saturday, but that never seemed to be on the table. I wonder why.)

Only when the backlash to that friendly judge’s temporary injunction was too great — and included a lawsuit filed by the Big 12 Conference itself — did Sorsby withdraw from his efforts to play college football for Texas Tech this fall. And only then did he pursue a path to the NFL supplemental draft.

I saw that. You saw that. The entire NFL saw that.

At no point in this saga did Sorsby agree that his rule- and law-breaking behavior deserved punishment. (Well, except for that one time he magnanimously offered to serve a two-game suspension to skip games against Abilene Christian and Oregon. But that’s almost more insulting than it is a slap on the wrist.)

Sorsby did not act like someone who believed his actions deserved consequences — and the NFL clocked that. He did not outline all the ways he would make sure he followed rules and laws moving forward. The NFL noticed that, too.

“The issues presented by your Petition are too significant, and too closely tied to the League’s core integrity interests, to permit meaningful review within the timeline presented,” the league concluded.

It’s hard to argue with that, though I fully expect Sorsby and his legal team to do just that. Because when push comes to shove, they’ve shown that they’ll sue to avoid taking “no” for an answer. Even when it’s a resounding one.