NFL Supplemental Draft: How Does It Work? What To Know As Brendan Sorsby Enters

Former Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby has brought back a rare and obscure part of the NFL vocabulary: the supplemental draft.

Sorsby, 22, has applied for the supplemental draft after gambling problems complicated his eligibility at Texas Tech. He had transferred there after two seasons at Indiana and two more at Cincinnati, but now will head to the NFL rather than play a final season of college football.

Sorsby would have been a top draft prospect for 2027, having thrown for 27 touchdowns against just five interceptions last year at Cincinnati. Allegations of widespread gambling, including wagers placed on his own team, put his eligibility in jeopardy, and though a judge had granted an injunction allowing him to play the upcoming season, backlash from other schools led him to the NFL.

So what exactly is the supplemental draft? How will it work for NFL teams considering adding Sorsby to their rosters? Here are the basics for the process, which will unfold over the next six weeks ahead of the start of NFL training camps.

The NFL Supplemental Draft is intended for players who no longer have eligibility but were not eligible for the league's regular draft in April. It has become a rare phenomenon, with no players taken in a supplemental draft since safety Jalen Thompson was taken in the fifth round in 2019. Thompson, now with the Dallas Cowboys, is the only active NFL player taken in a supplemental draft.

To take a player in a supplemental draft, an NFL team must be willing to give up a pick from the next year's draft. After evaluating a prospect, each team can submit a bid, using a 2027 draft pick, and the team submitting the highest pick gets the player, essentially using a pick from next year now. The player joins the team on a rookie contract commensurate with the same pick in this year's draft.

To find a player most casual NFL fans would recognize from a supplemental draft, you have to go back 14 years to 2012, when Baylor receiver Josh Gordon was a supplemental second-round pick of the Cleveland Browns. He had been dismissed due to a positive marijuana test, and his NFL career was marked by similar violations. He had some success in Cleveland, highlighted by a 2013 season where he led the NFL with 1,646 receiving yards and made the Pro Bowl. He missed two entire seasons due to suspensions for violating the league's drug policies and totaled seven touchdowns in five seasons after his suspensions.

Another recent example is Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor, who entered the supplemental draft in 2011 after he and other teammates were accused of selling memorabilia. Facing a five-game suspension, Pryor withdrew from college and was taken by the Oakland Raiders in the third round of the supplemental draft. But the NFL also suspended him for five games at the start of his professional career.

The precedent with Pryor shows why NFL teams may be hesitant to draft Sorsby, as the league has taken a hard line against players gambling, with a minimum one-year suspension if a player is found to have bet on NFL games. NFL players can wager on other sports, but cannot do so while at team facilities or traveling with their team.

No team has used a first-round pick in a supplemental draft since 1992, when the New York Giants took Duke quarterback Dave Brown in the first round. The league had five first-round supplemental picks between 1989 and 1992, most notably receiver Rob Moore, who went to the New York Jets in 1990. Hall of Fame receiver Cris Carter was a first-round supplemental pick of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1987.

The supplemental draft becomes complicated if two or more teams submit bids for the same player in the same round. 

The league sorts NFL teams into three categories — those who won six or fewer games the previous season, the remaining teams who missed the playoffs and the 14 teams that made the playoffs. For this year, there are 10 teams in the first group — the Jets, Raiders, Giants, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Tennessee Titans, Kansas City Chiefs, Washington Commanders, New Orleans Saints and Arizona Cardinals — and those teams are chosen in a random order from a weighted lottery for the first subgroup. The same is done for the second group (eight teams), then the third (14), to create a supplemental draft order.

So if more than one team submits, for example, a fifth-round pick, the team that is first in that order would get the player from the supplemental draft. Teams that have already given up 2027 picks in trades this year cannot bid using picks they no longer have.

To some extent, this will depend on how high a pick he commands from teams. If it's a high draft pick, it might be limited to teams that don't have an obvious long-term answer at quarterback, like the Cardinals or Jets. Both of those teams used mid-round picks on quarterbacks in April, with the Cardinals taking Miami's Carson Beck in the third round and the Jets taking Clemson's Cade Klubnik in the fourth. The Pittsburgh Steelers, eyeing a successor to Aaron Rodgers, could be an option, though they used a third-round pick on Penn State's Drew Allar in April.

If it's a lower pick, it could be any team that doesn't have a developmental backup they like, and Sorsby could be seen as a chance to get ahead of the talented pool of quarterbacks expected to be available in the 2027 draft. Apprehensions about his gambling problems will mitigate his draft value strictly from a talent standpoint.

The NFL's deadline for prospects to apply for the supplemental draft is June 22, this coming Monday, and Sorsby has already reportedly applied. The league has established a one-week window from July 5-12, in which a player can hold a pro day and work out privately for teams, and then the supplemental draft is held on the seventh day before the start of the first NFL training camp, which would be in late July.