Brendan Sorsby is the most polarizing quarterback prospect of 2026, and his old coach wants NFL front offices to take one more look before they pass on him.
Sorsby officially declared for the NFL Supplemental Draft on Tuesday, ending a wild chapter at Texas Tech that included a gambling investigation, an NCAA reinstatement denial, and a Texas court injunction. The supplemental draft is set for late July, and several teams are doing real homework on him.
Scott Satterfield, his former coach at Cincinnati, spoke up this week and made his case. Satterfield called Sorsby a “first-round talent” and said the gambling situation is being misread by the league. He pointed to the in-patient rehab Sorsby completed and the work the quarterback has put in to clean up his life.
Satterfield knows Sorsby better than anyone. He recruited him, he coached him, and he watched him throw for 2,800 yards and 27 touchdowns in 2025. That kind of production at Cincinnati was a big reason Sorsby topped ESPN’s transfer portal rankings.
Then everything blew up. Sorsby admitted to placing bets on a variety of sports. The NCAA denied his reinstatement in May. A Texas judge gave him a temporary injunction to play in 2026, but the legal mess pushed him toward the NFL anyway. The Big 12 even filed suit against Texas Tech over the situation.
ESPN’s draft evaluators are split. Some have him as a second-round pick in the supplemental draft. Others see him as a first-round talent who falls to the third round because of the off-field risk. One scout said teams will pay full price for the upside and almost nothing for the baggage, depending on the war room.
Satterfield’s argument is simple. Sorsby is a 23-year-old quarterback with real arm talent and starting potential. The mistakes are real, but so is the recovery work. Writing him off entirely ignores everything he has done since.
The teams reportedly doing the most homework include the Browns, Jets, Raiders, and Saints. All four have shaky quarterback situations and the kind of front office willing to take a calculated swing at upside.
The supplemental draft format is unique. Teams forfeit a future pick at the round they bid on the player. So if a team bids a second-round pick for Sorsby and wins, they lose their 2027 second.
That is the math NFL front offices are running right now. Sorsby would not be the first quarterback to come out of the supplemental draft with starter upside, but he would be the most talked-about one in years.
The Bernie Kosar trade in 1985 still shapes how teams think about the supplemental process. Most years, the bids are token gestures. This year, with Sorsby in the pool, the bids could be very real.
Satterfield wants NFL teams to remember the version of Sorsby that lit up the Big 12 in 2025. The league is going to find out in late July whether anyone agreed.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
