Hour 1: Brendan Sorby to NFL Supplemental Draft Reaction, plus ESPN MLB Insider Jeff Passan

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1:15Our YouTube channel. Subscribe at youtube.com slash richeisenshow and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Mike Brown.

1:28Rich Eisen:My God, what a job he did. I couldn't believe it was happening. From the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. I'm even so happy I would hug James Doma for a split second. Today's guests. ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan. NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero. ESPN college football analyst Josh Pate. And now, it's Rich Eisen. All right, everybody. Welcome to this edition of the Rich Eisen Show. Lots going on in this neighborhood with the World Cup going off the charts, off the hook. I'm still off of my rocker over the New York Knicks winning it all. The Knicks are absolutely everywhere. Hanging with Jimmy Fallon.

2:13Rich Eisen:Hanging on the Today Show. Well, sort of. Live streaming. Live streaming. There's lots going on with my Knickerbockers. Somebody get McHale's phone. That's what Jalen Brunson actually posted yesterday. Somebody should take him off his phone. Has O.J. woken up yet? Lots happening in that neck of the woods. Baseball. Baseball. Yes. We're going to be talking about that with Jeff Passan coming up in 20 minutes time. Pete Crow Armstrong goes for the cycle, completes it, and then gets picked off for first base. The whole PCA experience happened last night for the Chicago Cubs. There's so much happening in the baseball neck of the woods.

2:50Rich Eisen:Baseball. And the Brendan Sorsby conversation is white hot to the touch. We'll hit that with not just one guest, but two guests. Tom Pellicero on the NFL side of things. Josh Pate on the college football side of things. Good to see you over there, Christopher Brockman. What's going on? What's up, man? Jason Feller. Good to see you over there. Pleasure your Dodgers doing my Yankees a favor by beating the Rays last night while they were off. Good to see you, TJ Jefferson. What's going on? It's cracking, man. That's right. What's up, fellas? The candles lit. You know, the Brendan Sorsby scandal, saga, however you want to put it, set to argument, setting the entire college football world aflame, lasted, what would you say, nine Belichick New York Jet head coach days?

3:42Rich Eisen:Pretty much what it was. you know i mean belichick was a head coach at the hc for about a day and a half so doing the math it was just a week ago yesterday um that a judge a retired judge in the state of texas about 300 miles from lubbock uh pardon me 300 miles um away from the uh texas tech campus um he decided that the lubbock county district uh court uh judge the former retired judge that was uh working out of there decided that uh brendan soresby could play for for texas tech um his lead attorney jeffrey kessler who the nfl world knows very well this guy this guy wins he's kind of like just google him the guy wins cases and um he basically convinced this judge in the state of texas that um hey brandon soarsby yeah you know he gambled a lot um he gambled a lot on the teams on which he was playing um he placed more than 9 000 bets totaling at least 90 000 yeah that that happened but that's a sickness that's a mental illness and he convinced the retired tarrant county judge that um that basically the ncaa did not do its job to support soarsby in his well-being when it ruled him ineligible he described the gambling history as a mental health issue that the The NCAA is obligated to support and not punish.

5:29Rich Eisen:Wow. And the judge in that county that includes Fort Worth, nearly 300 miles from Lubbock, where Texas Tech is located, goes, yeah, I agree. He should be allowed to play. And the entire college football world and also those who talk about it go crazy. and Jay Billis came on this program and he's at the cross-section of loving to poke the NCAA and the legal cross-section, former lawyer. I guess once a lawyer, always a lawyer. He's like, everybody chill out. This is going to be appealed and it won't be held up on appeal. And, you know, in this day and age, things get put into the legal machine and you think it's a no-brainer and it comes out.

6:15Rich Eisen:Well, your brain's mush.

6:20Rich Eisen:but this legal process would take some time to play out. And in between, you're hearing some conferences say, we are not going to schedule Texas Tech. We're not going to schedule Texas Tech. They're going to be persona non grata. The Big 12 themselves issued a statement that excoriated this judge and Texas Tech. they filed for a federal injunction this past monday for the right to potentially discipline soresby under its rules the attorney general of texas ken paxton whose name is all over the headlines right now as we all know he's basically saying if they touch this kid you know you're gonna have to come through the state of texas and then other attorneys generals across the united states a handful of them are like yeah well guess what we We represent other states and other schools that the Big 12 also calls as members.

7:23Rich Eisen:We got a problem with that. And the NCAA then asks an appeals court for an expedited resolution to the case that popped two Mondays ago. Because they want some sort of a resolution before the football season. They don't want to let this kid go into the football season and sit just two games and come back and then be sad again because the legal process is taking too long.

7:50Rich Eisen:so the big 12's pissed the ncaa's pissed a lot of coaches are pissed a lot of athletic directors are pissed and texas tech is pissed that people are pissed at them a lot of people are pissed everybody's pissed off it's like that line from midnight run everybody's telling me go ask myself you know so what's going to happen here guess what happens this kid who no doubt has something that he's got to work out within himself within his brain within his body within his spirit all of that clearly something's up and i don't know if this all weighed on him it has to have but the bottom line is the big 12's pissed other attorneys generals generals are pissed the NCAA is pissed Texas Tech has his back they're beginning to feel potentially that they're not going to be able to continue to have his back legally, morally spiritually, who knows and there's a deadline of June 22nd right around the corner that's the last safety valve for Brendan Sorsby and all this and that is called the National Football League Supplemental Draft that's the deadline by which you must apply for the supplemental draft, which isn't a guarantee to happen.

9:14Rich Eisen:The NFL's got to say we're going to have one for those who are now, for whatever circumstances, eligible to play in the NFL, but weren't eligible to play during the draft. And if he doesn't apply for that by June 22nd, then this whole legal stuff, he's stuck in that riptide.

9:35And I guess he and his family and Texas Tech,

9:40Rich Eisen:and his legal representation all got together and decided, not worth fighting this one anymore. Not worth fighting it anymore. Go to the NFL. And so that is what is going to happen. Brendan Soresby is no longer going to play college football, and he's going to the National Football League in a supplemental draft. We'll talk about what that means in a second. a statement put out by Texas Tech's,

10:23the head of their board of regents,

10:28Rich Eisen:the chairman of the board of regents of the Texas Tech University system named Cody Campbell. It was a very long statement in which he's talking about the ills and the problems of college football and athletics in general and what it means for student athletes and what it means for schools like Texas Tech. And he's talking about the problems and how he wants to fix them and he wants this to be part of the fix of everything that's going on in college football and college athletics writ large. Leads to this paragraph that I wanted to pull and put on the screen as I have here for the radio audience.

11:03Rich Eisen:Quote, these same deep beliefs and feelings caused me great sadness as I inform you that Brendan Sorsby will not be part of the Texas Tech football team this fall. He will be stripped of the opportunity to continue to develop as a better and stronger man, stripped of his last opportunity to compete at the highest level of college sports, and I pray that he can stay on his path to recovery. I echo those sentiments. I do hope that he stays on the path to recovery. I don't know the kid at all. I can only assume him at the center of all this over the last eight days, eight, nine days, whatever he went through in his period where he went into rehabilitation.

11:49Hopefully he got a lot of portable advice from whoever was guiding him in that counseling for him to lean on over these last eight days.

12:01Rich Eisen:It could not have been easy. At all. But I just need to say this to Mr. Campbell, who I also don't know at all. It's not him being stripped of this. He stripped himself with his behavior. Period. End of story. It's called consequences. My goodness gracious, it's called consequences. If you are a parent, it's called consequences of your actions. And when you look, you don't want to punish your child. You don't want to, but there are circumstances based on the child's behavior where you are in a position to do nothing but discipline. this person based on their actions and then after the discipline comes the recovery and the help and in conjunction with that it's what leads them to potentially seek the help that they need is the consequence i can't believe i need to say this right because the gambling and the gambling and the gambling it may be part and parcel of this awful world that we're all living in in a toy department it may be part of all of that that yeah he got caught up in everything but the bottom line is he got caught up and he got caught and this is a violation that can bring the entire house down if i'm sitting at home and thinking this thing isn't on the up and up all this nonsense that dearon fox was on the take that you see all over the place because he played so poorly at times in the nba finals it's just the dude played poorly he's not on the take unless you're like how do you know i mean these these things can happen these things exactly these things can it happen i understand it has happened before and you're like wondering can it happen so if somebody is actually busted for gambling like this on a team that he's playing for there's a consequence he's not stripped he stripped himself and that's why people are pissed that a judge comes in and just like yeah there's no consequences the consequences is you didn't support him in his recovery.

14:40It's just kind of absurd on its face.

14:43Rich Eisen:And when you push back on it, it makes you sound like you don't have any sympathy for the kid. But when I'm disciplining, Susie, you're disciplining our children. We have nothing but sympathy for the child, but we have to do it because we're raising somebody and we're the adult in the room. okay i'm off the soapbox now comes the national football league portion of this thing terrell prior once upon a time had a five game suspension thrown on him for if you look back at what happened to the ohio state and jim trestle back then based on what's going on right now you're like really like is that did that really exist where you know he got money for memorabilia and and he's popped for five games and jim trestle's coaching career is over fired that happened yeah okay now that that's a walk in the park that probably happened five minutes ago somewhere in a program you wish that's the only problem you had my goodness man but the nfl was like hey he's trying to avoid a five-game suspension there he's got if he wants roger gaudill basically told him if you want a supplemental draft you've got to serve the five games in the nfl now i don't know if they're gonna handle that with soresby in the same way because you've got to be consistent i i don't know if i would criticize the nfl for doing it differently it's a different world reggie bush got his heisman back yeah kayshaun booty had a kind of a similar situation at lsu he was gambling uh on lsu games and but he didn't get suspended at all when he joined the nfl i don't think i think i don't know what they're going to do again jeffrey kessler involved in a legal dispute with the nfl they have a desire to be part of that like a head hole.

16:25Okay.

16:25Rich Eisen:And so I don't know what they're going to do. But it's buyer beware with the kid. You're all the time talent over everything. He's very talented. And you got to figure out what the everything is. And the way it works is, you know, there's a bottom third of the league that goes first and then there's the second group of teams and then the playoff teams go third and you raise your hand and say, I'll use a first round pick on him. And it's a certain, the order's random in those three groups and whoever delivers a higher draft choice pledge, you get them. The player hasn't been chosen the supplemental draft in the National Football League since 2019.

17:13Rich Eisen:It's been a long time.

17:18Rich Eisen:so there's gonna clearly there are scouts who know what the kid looks like on the field there's tape that you can grind next year is a monster quarterback draft how good is he compared to those folks but you can get him now you can get him in your program you can get him in training camp you can get him in right now who wants to do it who wants brendan soresby believe it or not Aaron Glenn was asked this very question this morning I'm going to focus on the guys that we have here now and that's something that I'm sure me and Mujia talk about but listen I got you know the quarterbacks here that we're focused on right now apart from the evaluation of him as a quarterback the off the field stuff the gambling issues would that disqualify him in your eyes?

18:07I have no idea of what that is, to be honest with you. I heard about it. I see it on TV, but I don't want to respond to that because I have no idea of the inner work of that. It's not fair to that player for me to do that.

18:19Rich Eisen:Bingo. Handled expertly there by Aaron Glenn. By the way, talk about being on the clock. Number of friends or people that have texted me or posted at me after the Knicks won it all, after Michigan won it all. Jets are next, Rich. Okay. To do what? Thank you. Good job, TJ. Good one, TJ. I don't know. He's just figuring out, you know, what am I going to do with Geno Smith and the rest of the quarterbacks in my room, and I got all these draft choices. He said, Muj, it's Darren Muj, the general manager of the Jets. He's referring to there. What are you going to do? Well, I'll tell you what. There's a bunch.

19:07Rich Eisen:This is crazy. There are a bunch of evaluators who work nonstop in the NFL, who worked nonstop for the draft, who have been working nonstop to figure out who's available on other teams. We're going to get June 1st, this, that, the other thing. You're going to make this list. And they're probably sitting around going, all right, vacation time. Nope. Who wants Brendan Sorsby? and I assume the NFL will allow it. We'll see. He's getting picked. We'll talk about that with Tom Pelissero on Hour 2, Josh Pate Hour 3, but let's take a break and talk to our friend Jeff Passan about some Major League Baseball.

19:52Rich Eisen:He's got a hoodie on like he's Belichick. Oh, and look at this peacoat on the screen. Very impressive.

20:01Rich Eisen:The Rich Eisen Show Podcast.

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22:09Rich Eisen:Back here on the Rich Eisen Show, Jeff Passan is here on the program. He's come correct for those who are just joining us on ESPN Radio. Good to see you, man. Dude, this National League Cy Young race has to be as tight and as exciting and as well-decorated and well-earned for anybody mentioned in it right now than maybe ever. Is that an exaggeration, Jeff, right now? There's still a lot of baseball left to be played, but let's put it this way. The first half has been absolutely incredible, and it's Christopher Sanchez throwing 50 and two-thirds consecutive scoreless innings. And it's Shohei Otani putting up an ERA that just crept over one.

22:54And it's Jacob Mizorowski evolving into this fire-breathing creature, the likes of which nobody has ever seen. And that's the wild part to me about all of this. Jacob Mizorowski was a second-round pick from the Milwaukee Brewers, and the reason he dropped to the second round was twofold. One, he was a junior college player, but two, and more than that, most of the teams that saw him thought that he was a relief pitcher. They thought he's six foot seven. And no matter how fluidly he moves, no matter how hard he throws, the ability to have what's called proprioception, which is the, you know, knowing where your body is in space, essentially.

23:37and being able to replicate that delivery when your levers are as long as they are. There are just so few people throughout the course of history who have done it. And you can point to me and say, Randy Johnson, and I'll point back at you and say, he was an outlier and you don't make bets based on outliers. So this is a combination, I think, of Jacob Mizorowski just working and working and working and figuring out what his body feels like and what he needs to do to get it in that position. But more than that, the Milwaukee Brewers development system is absolutely incredible. And they're owed a lot of credit, whether it's Jackson Truria or Freddie Peralta or Corbin Burns or Brandon Woodruff in the past generation.

24:21And now Jacob Mizorowski and Jesus Motti, who's the number one prospect in all of baseball and Luis Pena and a ton of others in their farm system. The Brewers are just doing it right. And what they're reaping in Mizorowski includes, you can argue that it's the best pitched game of this decade so far. Nine innings, one hit, no walks, 15 strikeouts, all on 95 pitches, Rich.

24:48Rich Eisen:Right. And in his last one, wasn't it like 104 miles an hour or something crazy like that? Oh, you mean averaging 103.7 miles per hour on his fastball in the first inning? and then coming back in the ninth for the first complete game of his entire career and averaging over 102 that inning. That's what I mean when we haven't seen this before. We've seen great pitching performances since the game started in the 1870s. What we haven't seen is a guy who throws with this much velocity, throws it over the plate, and can carry it deep into games. You know, Justin Verlander coming out and pumping 100 in the ninth inning is incredibly impressive.