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If you missed it, OK, Brandon Sosby is not, the NFL essentially declared him not eligible for the supplemental draft.
The NFL is not gonna have a supplemental draft this year.
Uh, Brandon Sosby and his team are planning on essentially, like, Siding with the players association that he's not yet in to sue the league that he's not yet working for, right?
And what's, what's interesting is like a key to his case, so like a key to his case might be the fact that he's not in the players association if you follow me there, like because he didn't negotiate those rules, you know, so it's, it's tangled up, but we can get into it for sure.
So, I want to start with this and um I think, uh I want to separate because you and I talked after I filed my column.
I read your column, which I thought was excellent, and, and 40s came out a little bit later on.
Um, but my first thought on this, and I know that, that there are kind of ancillary business reasons for this, but just on its surface, I think this is a very, very smart thing for the NFL to do because By disallowing Soresby from coming into the league at a moment where his situation is very much in flux, the league is basically saying to college football, clean your own mess up and, you know, we'll take him at another time.
They're basically pushing.
They're preventing the summer from becoming the summer of Soresby, from taking away from training camp, from basically having the optics of a discussion being, look at how many teams are possibly slobbering over a guy who bet almost $100,000 on sports, which is highly frowned upon.
Yeah, I mean, so like this is such a rich topic, and I think there's so many different angles we can take, you know , which is.
Um, you know, like I, I, I, I, I think why so many people have latched on to it in so many different arenas.
Um, you know, I think like the first thing we should probably hit here is like just a little of the background for people who haven't followed it, right?
So, Um, he was declared ineligible by the NCAA because, um, he had placed, like Connor said, I think near, I think what the number was $90,000 worth of bets, um, you know , and there were a lot of them were small bets and a lot of them were like, I think he was betting on like hai lai in India and some of them, right, like, but the ones that you're that, that, that the NCA had circled were from.
Um, you know, almost 4 years ago when he was being redshirted in Indiana and so, um, I 100% agree with the idea that there has to be a punishment for anybody who gambles on their own team.
End of story, you know what I mean?
Like, so, so anyway, so the NCAA rules him ineligible and then.
He files for an injunction by um some miracle, he gets the injunction, which I, I'm not gonna break down to why that was so unlikely legally to happen, but he finds a judge in Texas that, um, that, that, that, that, that sympathizes with him and, and more or less, this was horrible for the NCAA because the premise was basically that, uh, that They couldn't enforce this rule because like he hadn't agreed to it, you know.
And so, like they could take the case on its merits and agree with Sosby that he would face, you know, irreparable damage by, um, by, uh, by, by, by, by sitting out the 2026 season.
So then, the Big 12 takes legal action.
Soarsby looks at it and sees the supplemental draft deadline coming, like, basically like forecast the scenario that he's in right now where he beaches SOL, withdraws the lawsuit, injunction's gone.
He's again ineligible, which makes him eligible now to apply for the supplemental draft, which he did last Tuesday.
And then on Monday, the deadline comes and goes Tuesday, this Tuesday.
Um, he's denied.
Um, as for where this goes from here, and I think this part to me is fascinating.
I don't know if people find it fascinating, but His case is basically now that the NFL is a trade association, and a trade association cannot determine the employability of someone.
They have to leave it up to the companies, which in this case would be the teams, right?
And the NFL has positioned itself as a trade association because it's an operating monopoly.
And so, The idea that a trade association would keep an individual out exposes the monopoly because there's only, now there's only one place to go and you can't go to that place to find a job.
So like that's the crux of the legal case.
There's also the, the case law precedent of Maurice Clarett in 2004, where the collectively bargained three-year rule, which doesn't allow college freshmen or sophomores or high school seniors to declare for the NFL draft was challenged by Clarett.
He initially won.
Then on appeals, the NFL got that overturned on the premise that that was collectively bargained.
Claret was not an NFL player at that point.
So like that would be the case law case that the NFL would have.
Either way, I, I would tell you this, Connor, just to wrap all of that into a bow.
I thought there was no way the NFL was going to do this.
Not because they didn't want to, because I think they all along wanted to do this because they don't wanna deal with it like you said off the top, right?
I think the reason, the, the reason I didn't think the NFL would do this is because I think the lawyers would tell them we're gonna lose in court, you know, and they wouldn't want a protracted legal battle taking place over the next month or two .
They have now put the onus on that.
They moved the onus on that to Soresby, right.
So now the question isn't whether the NFL wants to go through a legal fight.
Now the question is whether Sourceby wants to, right?
That's now a question he has the answer because the NFL already has.
So, uh, I, I saw a couple of questions, uh, from some people commenting on stories about options for Soursby, and we should make that clear before I move on to what I think is another important point.
Um, there is not, to my knowledge, a CFL team that squatted on his rights.
Um, I don't think so, and the CFL season is like, in like, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's in swing.
The UFL is a possibility, but the UFL, I believe, runs essentially right, they start in January or something, yeah, and it basically slams right into the draft, the draft and training camp and all that stuff.
So there's that.
The route that, and I'm not, I don't mean to make light of this, I'm, I'm, I'm sure that everything that's going on with Sosby right now is, is awful and terrible.
There have been players in not exactly a similar situation like this, but who have played for, like, community colleges for a year.
And it, you know, I'm always a fan of, like, The former Major League Baseball player playing beer league softball and just smacking 600 ft home runs, like it would be kind of awesome to see Soarsby just completely carve up like Kentworth Community College for, you know, I, I don't know, just, just, just to place the ball.
But, uh, so I say that to say this.
I think 0.2 And 40 and I kind of made different versions of this point.
40 basically said, and I agree with him.
It should have been Soarsby's camp's stance all along that they needed more time.
And this rush to get him into the NFL is, and this is what I said in my column.
I think that undercuts his whole point that this is an addiction.
This is a mental health issue, and it's the fault of these apps, and I can't, I can't get through it.
And so if that's the case, which I believe, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not discounting Sosby's issue, then this is a more than a 30-day inpatient issue.
You need time to get through it.
You need to, you need help.
It's a gambling addiction, right?
It's not just 30 days and it's like, OK, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
We're good.
Uh, now, put me in the NFL.
I'm fine.
And so I think that that an aggressive push to get him into the league undercuts the seriousness of what they're alleging that these apps do to people, which, by the way, It is 100% true.
I've seen it firsthand.
I have friends who are struggling with this, like, dear friends, and you see what it looks like, and it is, it's, it's horrible, OK?
And so I'm not discounting that.
And, and what I'm saying is, by pushing him to the NFL.
You're kind of saying like, well, we can figure the rest of this out on the fly.
Well, I don't think so.
You know what I mean.
I mean, honestly, dude, like I, I just .
Um, so, I, you know, I, I, I think that.
There's the football element of it, which is really obvious, right?
And I, I think that pos, that's a position you need to play, you know, like I can still remember the case of Drew Henson and Drew Henson taking a couple of years off, and I remember that was before my time covering the NFL.
But I, I was in college, I was the same, actually went to a football camp when I was a kid, so I was the same age as Drew Henson, and he was like the number one.
recruit in the country was a, I was the guy who was challenging Tom Brady at Michigan, had a great junior year after Brady was gone, and then he had a chance maybe to be the number one pick in the draft in 20 2002, signs with the Yankees instead.
Um, and like he spent, I think it was two or three years out of football, then tried to come back and it just completely lost it.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's hard to play that position after taking time off.
And so I think there is some merit to trying to play somewhere if you're him, um, and I think there is some merit to somebody who's struggling with something being in the structure of a team, you know, so I don't think like I say, I see what you guys are saying with this, right?
Like, which is like, he needs to take time.
I also think like the normalcy of being part of a team could help him.
Um, yeah, you know, I, I, I think the bigger to me.
Like this, so.
I think if I'm Soarsby's camp right now, I'm going to the NFL with the threat of a lawsuit.
And seeing if we can work out a suspension.
And I'm, I may even if I'm them, offer a season-long suspension.
Let me practice, let me meet, let me do all of that with my teammates.
I will not play this year.
And they suspend him for the season.
And as part of that suspension, he is in treatment.
If the NFL really wants to show they care about the kid, right?
Then I think they might be amenable to this.
And like the team gets the benefit of, we're gonna draft him, we're gonna get him in training camp.
He can play in preseason games, and then once the regular season starts, he is on ice, and he is, he is, he is serving a season-long suspension.
That way they can send a very strong message to everyone at the NCAA level, right?
The end that that that that they're not gonna put up with this.
And also, Show some grace for the kid who's involved.
Because I think the idea that he has not paid a price.
Like, already is not paying attention, you know what I mean?
Like he's already paid a price.
Like his legal fees are his legal fees.
He's cost himself money, cost himself a chance to play his way into the top 10 of next year's draft, which we're talking about now, $50 million guaranteed that he might have lost here, right?
If he goes in and he's suspended for, for, for all the games, like I, I just think there's something there if you're him where it's like.
I need to be, like, I need to be in a team environment.
I need to be like, have this light at the end of the tunnel.
And I think for the NFL it does show we're gonna have some grace here.
And if you're in the NFL that also allows you to set up a monitoring program, right?
That lets you, that allows you to make, and, and, and, and you can use the guy as an example.
So, like I, I personally think What's in the kid's best interest right now, like you said, is to make sure that he's taken care of from a non-football standpoint, and I think you can incorporate football into that.
And if I'm the people around him, the last thing I want is this kid falling into some state of depression over the next 6 months, or being pissed off at the world and being like, you know, Left to his own devices.
Uh, and, and again, he's not 15 years old, so like, let's, he's an adult, like he's responsible for all of this, but I think if you're talking about what's best for the kid, It's probably, I think that he's in some sort of team environment through the fall.
He's responsible, but it's like, also, let's make a laundry list of potentially career-altering things that I did from 18 to 22 that that weren't filmed or, you know, anything like that when I was younger.
I mean, let's be, I did a lot of dumb stuff.
I got arrested, you know, like, I don't, you know, like, it's.
Kind of one of those things where I've always joked about this with my friends.
There's like a certain age you get to where it's not funny if you got arrested anymore, you know what I mean?
I think you have a funny story.
Yeah, but you have a funny story getting like busted for something at a concert when you're 19, and that's like ha ha funny.
Well, it's not funny if it happens when you're 29, you know.
I was gonna say, what is it, because I think I would say.
I would say 23.
Yeah, I think it's probably right in there somewhere 23, 24, because you have like a year or two after college where you're really sort of still in college and based on the way you're acting, you know, right, and it's still fun to be legally drinking, um, and, and all that that entails, but you know what I'm saying, right?
Like there's a point where it's like.
You're gonna be telling stories, you're gonna be telling stories of this to your kids someday, and you, when you get back together with your high school friends or your college friends, you're talking about this dumb stuff that happened.
It's like a lot different than like getting like hauled in by the police at like 28 years old.
You know what I mean?
Uh, yes, you should always consider the fact that you have something to lose at, uh, at some point.
I, I think what you're saying is valid.
I think what, what I struggle with, right, is there's always the pie in the sky thing where it's like, oh, we'll get him into a program at the, at the NFL level and counseling is part of it, rehabilitation is part of it.
How did that go for Deshaun Watson, right?
I mean, wasn't that , you know, it wasn't that a whole thing where like, we're gonna get him in here and then, you know, counseling is part of it and there's benchmarks that then there's hurdles, and then he essentially backtracked, uh, uh, uh, a half-baked apology and has never come out and admitted any wrongdoing, but the NFL is asking for accountability, right, right.
Did they actually seek it?
With DeSean?
No, no, no, no, no, no, I'm saying with, with Soarsby.
Did they actually seek accountability with, I mean, that letter they put out like the letter from Larry Ferrazani, who people don't know, he's in charge of the management council which handles all these things.
It's the legal, it's the NFL's legal team basically their internal legal team.
So, um.
I read that letter, and the first thing that stuck out to me was The fact that they were, they complained about him filing an application for a supplemental draft, 3 business days, which by the way, was 6 actual days.
Before the deadline, and I was kind of like, what are you talking about?
Like, can you imagine somebody brought this example up to me yesterday?
Can you, can you imagine you're a kid applying to get into a private school or to go into, go to, go to college and you file the deadline.
The deadline's on a Monday and you file the application.
You send the application the previous Tuesday, and the response you get from the school is, Well, you didn't send it early enough for us to vet you.
What?
What?
I thought the deadline is the deadline, right?
Like, so they set the deadline for June 22nd, he gets it in June 16th.
It's like, what are you even talking about?
Like that makes no sense.
So there was that piece of it that made no sense to me.
The other thing was after I did a little digging, I mean, like from what I understand, the application for the supplemental draft is really straightforward.
It's like, it doesn't even ask why you're ineligible, it just asks if you're ineligible to play in college, which was a yes.
And so like that's like my thing is like where was he supposed to show accountability like they didn't sit down and talk with him.
It's like you say he showed no accountability.
Well, did you seek that?
Did you ask for it?
Like it wasn't part of the application process and maybe if you had taken the time, maybe if you had actually sat down and talked with him.
So I think that that part of it.
You know, it could be an important piece too, like, is there a point where the NFL can sit down and talk with the kid and actually vet him for themselves?
It'd probably be an unorthodox thing to do, but this is a very unorthodox case.
Is there a world where, um, this becomes a little bit like, and I, I guess it's gonna involve kind of like a little bit of an accusation here, a blind accusation, but like, is there a world where this becomes Like the moment where Lamar Jackson was eligible and then every team came out and was like, nope, don't want him.
Like, is this a, is this a moment where let's say that Soarsby somehow manages to claw his way through the thicket and become the word, uh, yeah, uh, something that rhymes with delusion, um, you know, and it, it like, is there a not so subtle inference from NFL teams like we are not taking this guy.
I would say, I would say.
I would say yes.
If this turns into a legal fight that he wins.
Um, that I would, but I even then it would seem like really blatant, you know what I mean?
If it's a negotiated settlement that he's gonna accept some sort of suspension, I would say no, because at that point, the league is like the league, the league would have to be satisfied with the result, right?
Like, which is, OK, here's the result, um.
It's fascinating.
I, I also think like, look, I've gotten a lot of this, like, whoa, the league can have beer ads up and everything else.
Like, so, I, I think I hate doing the whole like two things can be true.
I, I like, I kind of hate doing that, but like it is in this case, applicable where you can say, one, the NFL absolutely, positively has to be.
Very, very harsh on anyone who places any sort of bet on their own team.
It's a player, a coach, whoever else, right?
100%, I agree with them.
They're good to be harsh on this.
They're sending the right message.
We can also say that they have firmly positioned themselves as part of the problem, right?
And this is not the same as having a Bud Light sign in your stadium, in your stadium, you know what I mean ?
Like you are, you are actively involved like in the, like the, the, the, you are actively involved in the monetization of these, of these companies of, of, of, of this, of this product , right?
You are, you are actively, you have owners that have been investors and DraftKings and FanDuel and all that.
You are in, in some cases like intimately involved in in helping to create the gambling product, um, and I think that's worth mentioning too just because , you know.
I The other thing that bothers me about this is how easy it is for kids to fall into it.
Oh God, yeah, like, think about how hard it was when you were, you know, 1817, 18 years old in high school to get beer, you know what I mean?
Like it was.
It was pretty hard, right?
Like you had to have like a fake ID or you had to, you would have a friend like you had, you, I, I, we're going into a lot of these areas here, but there was a guy who gave me 6 Heinekens for Halloween when I was 16 in a pillow.
You had to have a plan.
There were real barriers.
Like at my high school it was easier to get drugs than it was to get alcohol, um.
We didn't have a problem with any of that.
Yeah, like an alcohol, but alcohol was harder because you actually had to go through, all right, so like how do you get it?
And then, and then when you're 21, it was like if you get too drunk, right, like then you get in trouble for that.
So like there are all these like like all these walls around it, right.
There's something about this too that bothers me, where I think the NFL is at least a little complicit in the fact that It's so freaking easy to gamble now.
It is so freaking easy.
And like the idea of Brendan Soarsby as an 18 year old being redshirted and, you know, sitting on his phone in his dorm room, punching buttons.
Like, with, there's no real guardrails, there's nothing stopping him, you know, from developing an addiction.
It's just It feels to me like the NFL is part of.
Part of these companies handing these kids packs of like proverbial packs of cigarettes, 100%.
I mean, that should never be lost, um, but that's like the weird.
Sort of libertarian world we're, we're living in right now where it's like, I'm, you can do whatever you want, uh, you know, even things that are bad for you, and I'm not gonna stop you, but, you know, and I'm not gonna legislate it.
And I think we all saw this coming, the second that the NFL hopped in bed with gambling companies, and the NFL especially being the easiest to bet on.
Uh, in terms of having the most in-game situations to bet on, probably the most fun to bet on and being the most popular American sport, there's no question that they have helped usher in.
A generation of gambling addicts and that their hands are tied to this in some way, shape or form.
I'm kind of comparing it to the, the comparison I used in my column was, right, the NFL in this situation is a bartender, OK?
And you have a guy that comes in who you're like, You know, pretty sure this guy gets a little buck wild too often, but selling alcohol is my business.
And so you have to decide how many drinks you're going to give him before you cut him off, knowing that if you overserve him, uh, you know, I, I think this is one of those situations where there's liability, right?
Um, and I, I think that that's the fine line that they're treading right now.
