The Minnesota Vikings already took a big swing on a quarterback when they inked Kyler Murray this spring, so why not make it two in one offseason?
That is a question Ben Solak of ESPN posed on Monday, June 15 when he dubbed Minnesota as among eight teams that are viable suitors for quarterback Brendan Sorsby in the upcoming supplemental draft.
Also on Solak’s list of potential landing spots are the Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers.
“The Vikings have Kyler Murray secured for only one season and probably want more longer-term options beyond JJ McCarthy,” Solak wrote. “When quarterbacks with NFL size, NFL arm talent and NFL movement skills become available, depth charts that were previously endorsed by coaches suddenly become more tenuous. On talent alone, there should be a robust market for Sorsby in the supplemental draft — but of course, his unique case is not just about talent.”
Brendan Sorsby Wagered More Than $90,000 on Sports Over Past 4 Years in College
GettyFormer Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby.
Solak is absolutely correct to say it is not just about talent with Sorsby. It’s also about a considerable gambling scandal that spanned years and a calculated, but substantial, risk for any team that decides to take a shot on Sorsby this summer.
During his freshman year at Indiana, Sorsby wagered more than 40 bets on his own team. He never bet on the Hoosiers to lose and he never wagered on a contest in which he played, but the gambling also didn’t stop there.
Across the past four years, Sorsby has placed bets totaling more than $90,000 on professional and collegiate sporting events. The consequences were a ruling of ineligibility for Sorsby by the NCAA, even after he voluntarily entered inpatient treatment for gambling addiction earlier this year.
A Texas court granted Sorsby and his legal team an injunction, which may have led to the QB playing for the Texas Tech Raiders in 2026 and earning the $5 million in NIL money that program agreed to pay him for what would have been his fifth collegiate campaign.
However, the Big 12 and the rest of its member universities planned to fight back against that injunction by utilizing the conference by-laws. Perhaps due to the messiness that already existed, and might well have gotten worse, and/or for other reasons, Sorsby chose instead on Monday to declare for the supplemental draft.
Brendan Sorsby Likely to Land in NFL With Value of 2nd-Round Draft Pick
GettyFormer Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby.
Jeff Darlington of ESPN reported on the late-night, June 16 edition of “SportsCenter With Scott Van Pelt” that the league does not have to hold the supplemental draft and can easily cancel it based on the relative circus Sorsby’s situation has created.
However, reporting around the league has indicated it is more likely the NFL will stage the proceedings in late July, allow a team to select Sorsby and then hand down some sort of suspension.
The point of the discipline will be to send a message to other collegiate athletes that the supplemental draft isn’t an all-encompassing rip cord they can pull to escape any type of trouble they might get into while playing college sports.
“It’s incredibly messy,” Darlington said.
Darlington added that Sorsby will likely work out publicly at some point next month, after which the league’s draft process will be something akin to a “silent auction.”
Whichever team enters the strongest bid for Sorsby will retain his services and sacrifice the corresponding pick in the 2027 draft next April. Interested franchises will enter bids based on rounds: for example, a second-round pick or a third-round pick, etc.
“This is not something teams will be taking lightly,” Darlington continued. “[But] someone is gonna take a flier on him. I just think that’s gonna be the case.”
The majority of projections have Sorsby’s value hovering in the area of a second-round pick.
“Several execs I spoke with over the past few weeks agree that he’s worth a second-round pick in the supplemental draft,” ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler wrote Monday.
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