I hope no one came here today seeking insight – – let alone clarity – – on the latest vector heading in the Brendan Sorsby Saga. Yesterday, the NFL announced that it would not accept Sorsby’s application for Supplemental Draft eligibility and with no other applicants in the hopper, there would be no Supplemental Draft in 2026. The league presented its “reasoning” in the matter and all of it sounds good, but it seems to me that it does two things that are not positive things for the league:
- It merely kicks the can down the road on the question of whether Sorsby’s “gambling addiction” and/or gambling activities in the past and/or his recovery from his “addiction” will eventually lead to him being given a chance to make an NFL team. Whether Sorsby gets drafted now or next April when he will be “Regular Draft Eligible”, those questions loom and the league needs to make a decision.
- It opens the NFL up to a legal situation that would not exist if the Supplemental Draft application had been accepted. Sorsby was represented by Jeffrey Kessler in his suit against the NCAA; Kessler has long been an antagonist for the NFL and if you are not familiar with his background, he was the lead attorney in the lawsuit against the NFL in the 1990s that established player free agency – – something everyone takes for granted these days.
Jeffrey Kessler is not a shrinking violet; yesterday he declared that the league’s action was illegal since the process for holding such a Supplemental Draft and the conditions by which it would happen were collectively bargained with the NFLPA and therefore, the NFL could not summarily cancel the Supplemental Draft without the players’ affirmation. I don’t pretend to understand the legal theory there but let me try to translate that into English. I think Kessler is saying:
- “See you in court, gentlemen…”
And why the NFL would conclude that a lawsuit on this matter at this time is somehow beneficial to the league is not in my cognitive space this morning. In the letter from the league to Sorsby – – and Kessler too of course – – the NFL leans on the fact that Sorsby’s application was not filed until 3 days before the deadline thereby giving the NFL insufficient time to go over all the issues in the matter to make a judgment. That is probably exactly correct but that is what deadlines are all about. If you have to have something done by a specific date and you get it done 3 days before that date, it should not be a basis for denying an application for too little time. The deadline should provide for sufficient “pondering time” or the deadline should be changed.
Adding to the foggy nature of the situation this morning is a line on the report in this morning’s Washington Post on the matter. A “person with knowledge of the NFLPA’s thinking” said that the union “has not made a determination on if, how or whether there are legal grounds” to challenge the NFL’s decision there. I understand that the union would not want to make a pronouncement on this without time to “get it right”, but there is a fundamental element here that I do not understand:
- The union represents the body of players in the NFL, and it negotiates with the NFL to assure players’ rights and responsibilities as employees of the league.
- Brendan Sorsby is not a player in the NFL.
- So, I do not understand how or why the NFLPA can or would take up an action on his behalf. If I had applied for the Supplemental Draft, the NFL would have turned down my application too; would the NFLPA consider legal action on my behalf? I doubt it …
And speaking of the Supplemental Draft and by extension NCAA eligibility, the NCAA also announced yesterday new eligibility rules. Division 1 athletes will have five years of eligibility to complete five seasons of competition at the collegiate level. The idea is to severely limit college careers that can span 6 or even 7 years of eligibility as was the case for Tyler Shough now with the New Orleans Saints. Assuming that this new rule stands up to legal challenges that are sure to come, it should put an end to such things as “redshirt years” and “medical waivers”. As proposed, the exceptions allowed for extending college eligibility would be limited to:
- Religious missions
- Military service
- Maternity leave [Aside: What about “paternity leave”?]
There does not seem to be any new regulation of the Transfer Portal in this new eligibility system that has acquired the name “Five-in-Five”. Perhaps that is coming later? Or will transfers just happen as they do now except with a time limit of five years? Still TBD …
Finally, since there is not a lot of certainty contained in the verbiage above, let me close with a pertinent observation by Groucho Marx:
“Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………