NFL teams assumed they'd have another year to figure out Brendan Sorsby. Another season of college tape, more time for area scouts to gather information, more opportunities to investigate the gambling history, ask uncomfortable questions and determine whether the quarterback they saw on Saturdays was someone they could ultimately trust with an organization.
The supplemental draft eliminates any such luxury. It forces teams to make a decision now, whether they feel ready to or not. And after revisiting this most recent quarterback class, here's where I landed: If Sorsby had entered the 2026 NFL Draft, he would've been QB2.
Not ahead of Fernando Mendoza, but ahead of everyone else. In fact, I talked to people around the league this spring who were incredibly high on Sorsby the football player and believed he would've been a first-round pick had he declared. And once I stacked Sorsby's profile against the quarterbacks who were actually drafted, it became harder and harder to justify putting him anywhere but second.
Of course, his evaluation has always been more complicated than clean; the gambling history isn't theoretical, and organizations will investigate every detail and determine for themselves whether Sorsby has earned their trust. I've also heard evaluators wonder whether he loves football in the obsessive, all-consuming way the league wants its franchise quarterbacks to love it. Those issues matter, but they don't have to be the end of the discussion.
The Boutte blueprint?
If you're looking for a silver lining in the incredibly dark cloud that currently hangs over the Sorsby situation, one that at times can look troubling at best and hopeless at worst for the young quarterback, the NFL has already shown that gambling problems -- even ones that involve betting on your own team -- aren't automatically disqualifying.
Kayshon Boutte entered the league carrying his own gambling baggage after a Louisiana State Police investigation revealed that he placed thousands of wagers while at LSU, including betting on his own team. Charges were eventually dropped, but the headlines remained. It would've been easy for the Patriots to decide the risk wasn't worth it and move on. Instead, they stuck with him.
Boutte later detailed the extent of his addiction in a Players' Tribune essay, admitting he lost roughly $90,000 and reached the point where he'd wake up in the middle of the night to place bets, describing himself as "completely broke" before football and fatherhood forced him to confront what he'd become. The Patriots didn't pretend the past never happened. They chose to evaluate the person standing in front of them rather than the worst chapter behind him.
To this point, the investment has paid off. Boutte rebuilt his reputation, carved out a role in New England's offense and became one of Drake Maye's trusted downfield targets over his first three NFL seasons. The gambling history became part of his story -- but not the entire story.
Of course, the comparison only goes so far; Boutte wasn't asked to be the face of a franchise, and he didn't touch the ball on every snap. Quarterbacks occupy a different place in an organization, and teams scrutinize them differently because they have to. Fair or not, the expectations attached to the position are higher.
Which means Sorsby's evaluation carries an added layer of complexity. A team isn't just deciding whether it believes the player can recover from past mistakes. It's deciding whether it's comfortable handing that player the keys to the entire operation.
The data contradiction
And that brings the conversation back to the part evaluators can actually grade. Strip everything else away, and it comes down to this: What exactly is an organization getting if it drafts Sorsby?
The answer, at least on the field, is a quarterback whose strengths compare favorably to anyone in the 2026 class.
The easiest quarterback to evaluate in that group was Mendoza. Every time I watched him, I wrote down the same things. Calm. Poised. Anticipatory. Accurate. Gets through reads. Stands tall in the pocket.
Oregon, Ohio State, Miami -- the environment changed, but the quarterback didn't.
He wasn't spectacular in the way some prospects are spectacular. He simply never forced you to explain away parts of his evaluation, and the numbers reflected that steadiness.
Note for the table below: Alpha measures how often quarterbacks create positive plays without offsetting them with mistakes. Deep Alpha isolates those same outcomes on throws of 20-plus yards. Pressure-to-sack percentage tracks how frequently pressure turns into drive-killing sacks, while the second-read metrics offer a glimpse into what happens once a quarterback is forced beyond his initial answer.
| QB | Alpha | Deep Alpha | P2S% | Second-read grade | Second-read comp% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fernando Mendoza | 2.9% | 23.9% | 18.9% | 65.8 | 63.9% |
Brendan Sorsby | 4.8% | 26.5% | 6.1% | 52.9 | 47.1% |
Mendoza wasn't QB1 because he dominated every category. He wasn't the best creator. He wasn't the best deep-ball thrower. He wasn't elite at avoiding sacks.
He earned the top spot because there weren't many holes in his evaluation. The gap between Mendoza and Sorsby wasn't talent but certainty. Mendoza offered fewer questions, while Sorsby requires teams to weigh elite traits against some real on-field concerns.
Here's what made him impossible to ignore: Sorsby finished first among the 2026 quarterbacks in Alpha Rate, first in Deep Alpha and first in pressure-to-sack percentage. He also finished last in second-read grade, a contradiction that ultimately defines his evaluation.
Three of those four categories describe traits NFL teams spend years searching for. The fourth explains why he wasn't QB1. Quarterbacks who attack vertically without recklessness usually process well once the first picture disappears. Quarterbacks who struggle to move beyond their initial answer often drift into sacks, compound mistakes and sabotage drives.
Sorsby did neither. He pushed the ball downfield, trusted his arm, wasn't afraid to make NFL throws and, more importantly, didn't turn pressure into disaster. Pressure-to-sack rate measures a quarterback's ability to survive. NFL defenses eventually win snaps, but the best quarterbacks minimize the damage – and Sorsby appears to understand that instinctively.
Weighing the risk
The easiest way to understand why, for me, Sorsby would have been QB2 is this: There's not another quarterback in the class who had his combined on-field strengths. Mendoza processed better, Simpson operated better when getting through his reads and with anticipation throws, and Beck had stretches of cleaner football.
And after Mendoza, no prospect checked every box. The question became which strengths mattered most -- and Sorsby's were difficult to find elsewhere in the class.
Simpson was the closest call. When he was healthy, he had excellent tape; he played with subtle pocket movement, consistently made good decisions, had the innate feel for the game usually ascribed to "a coach's son," and the data liked him for many of the same reasons.
| QB | Alpha | Deep Alpha | P2S% | Second-read grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2.7% | 18.9% | 18.3% | 74.3 | |
Brendan Sorsby | 4.8% | 26.5% | 6.1% | 52.9 |
As it turned out, I'd already wrestled with a version of this debate six months earlier. In January, I wrote about the league's growing willingness to invest in quarterbacks who don't arrive as finished products. Simpson had only 15 career starts, and history paints a bleak picture when you use a first-round pick on a passer with that level of inexperience.
Instead, the Rams, who took Simpson No. 13 overall, saw an older prospect who understood how to play the position. Les Snead and Sean McVay trust themselves to develop the parts that weren't there yet.
And if one of the league's best organizations was willing to take that risk with Simpson, why couldn't another front office view Sorsby's profile through the same lens?
We all know the answer: because it extends well beyond the field. Simpson's imperfections centered around his deep-ball struggles, which were at least partially explained by a midseason injury. Sorsby has football questions of his own, particularly when it comes to working through his reads, but his evaluation is complicated by far more than that. Teams also have to grapple with a sports-gambling fiasco that has seen players banned for months, years and sometimes longer.
Still (and the word "still" is indeed doing a lot of work, but rest assured NFL teams will use that word frequently in upcoming meetings about whether Sorsby's a risk worth taking), the supplemental draft rarely offers access to this kind of player. This isn't a developmental lottery ticket. This isn't an athlete learning how to play quarterback. This is the quarterback who, had he declared back in January, legitimately had a chance to be QB2 in the 2026 class.
At least one NFL team decided Simpson's strengths mattered more than his flaws. The supplemental draft will reveal whether there's another team out there that believes the same thing about Sorsby.
If one does, it'll be investing in a quarterback whose on-field profile compares favorably to almost anyone in the 2026 class. It will also be accepting the risk that comes with everything else.
That's what makes Sorsby such a difficult evaluation. The talent is easy to see. Determining whether it's worth the baggage is the harder question.
