The NFL will not hold a supplemental draft in 2026, and that decision shuts Brendan Sorsby out of the league until the 2027 draft. Sorsby had asked for the league’s first supplemental draft since 2023, hoping to use it as a way around the NCAA ruling that stripped him of eligibility this spring.
The reason the case drew so much attention is plain: Sorsby is not just a college player with a paperwork problem. He admitted to betting about 9,000 times over four years, including at least 40 bets on the Hoosiers while he was part of that team, and Judge Ken Curry later granted him a temporary injunction against the NCAA out of Lubbock County. That injunction gave Sorsby some legal room against college penalties, but it did not force the NFL to create a draft that it was not already planning to hold.
The league’s response came in a letter from Larry Ferazani, the general counsel of the NFL Management Council, who told Sorsby that Commissioner Roger Goodell has emphasized that playing in the NFL carries accountability. Ferazani also said the Collective Bargaining Agreement gives the league sole discretion over whether to conduct a supplemental draft in any given year, and said Sorsby’s petition, filed three business days before the deadline and without supporting information or documentation, did not give the league a basis to change course.
That leaves the central contradiction in place. The NCAA permanently stripped Sorsby of eligibility, and a judge in Lubbock County gave him temporary relief against that ruling, but the NFL is still using its own rules to keep the door closed until 2027. Jeffrey Kessler told that the refusal to hold a supplemental draft violates the Collective Bargaining Agreement, but for now the league has chosen its side: no shortcut, no special entry, and no NFL route this year.
For Sorsby, the consequence is immediate and concrete. He remains outside the league’s reach for at least another cycle, and unless something else changes, the next real chance to enter the NFL is the 2027 draft.
