Hour 2: NFL Insider Tom Pelissero Talks Brendan Sorsby, plus Raiders’ 2026 Realistic Expectations

0:00Tom Pelissero:MLB.tv on ESPN is your home for every out-of-market game, live or on demand. Catch your favorite teams and players, plus MLB Network and ESPN app features like Multiview, syncing your stats, key plays, bets, and fantasy, all in one place. Sign up now for MLB.tv in the ESPN app. Separate subscriptions required, blackouts and other terms apply. Visit stream.espn.com slash MLB TV for more information. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Hey, everybody. Can't get enough of the Rich Eisen Show? You're in luck. You can find us everywhere. Watch us weekdays on Disney Plus from noon to 3 Eastern. Miss the show?

0:44We've got a podcast so you can listen anytime. But here's the best part. Our YouTube channel. Subscribe at youtube.com slash Rich Eisen Show and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Mike Brown.

1:02Rich Eisen:My God, what a job he did. I couldn't believe that 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. Earlier on the show, MLB insider Jeff Passan. Coming up, NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero. ESPN college football analyst Josh Pate. And now, it's Rich Eisen. Hour two of the Rich Eisen Show here on this June Tuesday. We're in the back half of June already. We're hurtling towards your summer plans, potentially. 844-204-RICH, number to dial here on the program. Tom Pellicero of NFL Network joining us here to kick off this hour.

1:49Rich Eisen:Good to see you, Tommy P. How are you, sir?

1:51Tom Pelissero:Good to see you, Rich. What's up to my boys in the studio? Tommy P.

1:54Rich Eisen:What's up, baby?

1:56Tom Pelissero:What do you got, brother?

1:58Rich Eisen:I'll tell you. I'm here. What he's got is. I mean, I guess this is a perfect time to say that Henry Winkler's on tomorrow's show since he's dressed like he is the Fonz right now. Well, I thought Tom might have seen Jeff's hit earlier and wanted to one-up him. Is that right? Well, Jeff had the, I guess, the peacoat and the camel hair. He was looking sharp, yeah. Okay, we got that. And now we've got another insider.

2:21Tom Pelissero:Is he wearing that indoors? Yes. That's a lot of layers for a man in June sitting in his office.

2:28Rich Eisen:Well, it was on the photograph that we used going to break to tease that he was coming up. And he's like, he had it. So, I mean, but good to see you. You're with me, Leather. So listen. That's a members only code. Stop it. What happened with Brendan Sorsby in Texas Tech, Tom? What happened?

2:49Tom Pelissero:I want to qualify everything I say about Brendan Sorsby by first adding, Brendan Sorsby is not a victim in all of this. We all know why it got to this place, whether you want to call it an addiction, a compulsion. He was making bets, some of them against the rules. He got himself into trouble. He went away to rehab to address that issue, came back. Texas Tech was willing to embrace him and bring him back. What we saw take place over the last couple of weeks has very little to do with Brendan Sorsby. It is something much bigger than Brendan Sorsby. I'm sure, Rich, you've felt in your couple of decades in California an earthquake before.

3:33Tom Pelissero:Right now, the ground is shaking underneath college football. And your first instinct when you feel the crown shaking is grab onto something for support. That is what everybody is doing, whether it is teams, conferences, the NCAA. For five, six, seven years now, everything has been floating into the air and the room is shaking. There appear to be no rules. Things are being decided in the courts. What took place was Brendan Sorsby used the court system to his advantage. He paid a lot of money to do that and to hire Jeffrey Kessler and hire top representation and get an injunction from a judge in Texas that would overrule the NCAA, which had rejected his appeal of taking away his eligibility.

4:22Tom Pelissero:We have seen this with other players. You've seen it with other quarterbacks. Trinidad Chambliss went through this. You had last year Diego Pavia, Joey Aguilar. They had to get the so-called Pavia rule of if you played in JUCO, you've got additional eligibility here. What happened after that? The Big 12. You had schools. You had state attorney generals making threats. You had the NCAA appealing and trying to get an injunction to invalidate the injunction Brendan Soresby had gotten. As much as Brendan Soresby and Texas Tech wanted to see this through, they believed that they could survive the earthquake.

4:56Tom Pelissero:What became abundantly clear, Rich, was the ground was never going to stop shaking. Once things go into the court system, everybody loses control, not just over the outcome, but over the timeline. This could have gone into the season. This could have been the Big 12 threatening and suing to potentially keep Brendan Soresby and Texas Tech out of the conference championship game to keep him off the field. There were so many moving parts. And by the way, the deadline for applying to the NFL supplemental draft is next Monday. There was a real possibility here that something on one of these many fronts could have kept Brendan Sorsby from playing football anywhere.

5:32Tom Pelissero:He was left with really not a lot of great options. And so the plan, it has not happened as of an hour ago, but the plan is they are going to withdraw the lawsuit that they had filed against the NCAA in Texas, which then will overturn the injunction that made him eligible. It will allow the NCAA's ruling on his eligibility to ineligibility to stand. And then at that point, Sorsby intends to apply to the NFL supplemental draft. And if indeed he is ineligible, then the expectation is that he will be accepted into that supplemental draft. And we'll see where things go in the weeks to come.

6:06Rich Eisen:All right. Now, let's turn to the National Football League, Tom, because Brendan Sorsby, despite what he has done to help himself and what he's been able to do to realize whatever addiction he had and address it. There's no changing the four words that will hang over him heading to the National Football League, asking, petitioning for a supplemental draft spot. Those four words are gambling addiction, and Jeffrey Kessler, period. Those are two, four words that are associated with him when this gets placed before Roger Goodell and it's his decision to have a supplemental draft. What are you hearing on that front, Tom?

7:00Tom Pelissero:At this point, Brendan Sorsby is not officially applied to the supplemental draft. That's related to the lawsuit, but he intends to. At that point, the league is going to make a judgment. And of course, the teams are going to be seeking any information they can to try to figure out exactly what, if any, discipline could be coming at the NFL level. I think that we have to look at this through a historical lens, Rich, but also a modern lens. There hasn't been a supplemental draft since 2019. Why is that? Because nobody loses eligibility anymore. You had COVID, where guys were just getting fifth, sixth, seventh years.

7:35Tom Pelissero:You have NIL, which has essentially all the guys who became ineligible because they accepted money or in the case of Terrell Pryor, in a famous case, free tattoos. You don't have those same issues because now it's essentially the Wild West for paying players. Even the drug policy, the guys failed in the past. There's not the same emphasis on that. The NFL doesn't even test and suspend guys at this point for marijuana. So a lot of the circumstances that have applied to past cases don't exist now. Terrell Pryor, as a test case, was suspended at Ohio State. His eligibility taken away went into the supplemental draft.

8:14Tom Pelissero:The NFL, and this is 15 years ago, decided to enforce what had been the suspension that Terrell Pryor was facing at the NCAA because they did not want players running to the NFL as a safe haven to protect themselves and play when the NCAA said you cannot. That same offseason, as you remember, Jim Trestle, who also was fired as part of that, which in hindsight, the idea of a coach being fired because his players got free tattoos would be so antithetical to where we are in 2026. But this is 2011. It was a different deal. Trestle goes, takes a job at the Colts, and because prior suspension was enforced by the NFL, the NFL basically said, okay, we're also going to keep Jim Trestle away from the Colts for the same time period in order to try to make things fair.

9:03Tom Pelissero:That's where then if you fast forward to 2024, I think that Jeff Kessler would make this argument if it comes to that at the NFL level, that Jim Harbaugh facing a four year show cause in addition to a 10 year show cause, not just for recruiting violations, but for his knowledge or what the NCAA felt he should have known about an illicit advanced scouting scheme. He's essentially banned from college football through 2038. He has coached every game for the Chargers over the last two years. So if the NFL is not enforcing things, they apply to integrity of the game in the case of Jim Harbaugh. It's tough just if you're looking at this logically to say we're now going to enforce something on Brendan Sorsby.

9:48Tom Pelissero:In addition to that, you have the collective bargaining agreement, which dictates the players cannot be suspended under the personal conduct policy for any actions that occurred prior to them becoming NFL players. In other words, if Brendan Soresby does not have future issues involving illegal gambling or things that violate the NFL's gambling policy, which, by the way, other than those bets that he made on his own team when he wasn't part of the travel roster in 2022 at Indiana, most of these things would not have fallen under what is barred in terms of gambling by the NFL. that even under that, suspending Brendan Sorsby would not be an option that wouldn't come with potential complications from the NFL Players Association and in the courts.

10:33Tom Pelissero:Having said all that, Richard, I know this is a very long answer. There's a lot of grounded history to cover. Gambling is a hot button issue, not just in the NCAA, not just in the NFL, in society. I know plenty of people. I've got friends. I've got, you know, nephews. I've got it. everyone has a gambling app on their phone there's of course a line between legal and illegal there's a line between betting on things that you are allowed to and betting on your own team and absolutely there's a bright line crossed even though he wasn't on the travel roster at that point that's what you're reaching back to is something from four years ago but how does the NFL now approach this moving forward of course they've taken a hard line in the past on the likes of Calvin Ridley among others but even after the Calvin Ridley suspension of a year they then began to alter the rules and soften things that if it didn't involve betting on football which Ridley did in some capacities betting parlays that involved the Falcons at a time that he was on injured reserve they then began to ease back on some of the rules related to gambling on other sports.

11:39Tom Pelissero:Brendan Soresby lost by all the accounts that I have seen something like or bet something like$90 ,000. I know people rich that that's like a bad weekend in Vegas. Over four years, we're not talking about a ton of money, but Brendan Sorsby has paid a price. He has paid millions of dollars in legal fees. He's lost millions of dollars in endorsements. He is now ineligible for college football and saw his college football career end in a way that nobody would have expected even a week or so ago. And now he comes into the NFL with a scarlet letter on his chest is there a possibility here of a settlement of some kind such as the one that brendan soarsby and his lawyers by the way proposed to the ncaa that could have resolved all this and had him missing a chunk of the season could there be for instance even hey you can be around the team in practice but you can't play as a rookie i could see everyone involved coming together and saying we don't want this to be a clown show we don't want this to go into the courts let's figure this out but that is one of the unknowns that people are evaluating as nfl teams in less than the past 24 hours here are wrapping their minds around this is a guy with franchise quarterback traits who we also have to answer some of these questions before deciding at the end of july if we're going

12:54Rich Eisen:to use a future draft pick to get him all right so let's put a pin in that portion of your answer um the ohio state stuff is so far afield of what the realities are now it's insane right when you look back as to what blew up the Ohio State program then and what led the NFL to basically say, listen, you can't use our supplemental draft as a way to escape consequences. That I understand. Using the Jim Harbaugh situation, for the lack of a better phrase, is apples to oranges because Jim already had an entire year as Chargers head coach under his belt by the time he got the show cause so uh it's not like the show cause was there and he ran off to the chargers to avoid the show cause he was going to be the head coach of the chargers and that was pretty much the end of it was the fact that stuff was coming down part of his rubric of deciding to leave we'll never know you could assume bottom line is that's not that that's different than what happened with prior uh and what may be the case with soresby but i find it interesting that there could be a conversation of of hey you you go to the nfl but your penalty if you will is you can't play the first year you can do everything you want to get ready for your professional career um including being drafted and what have you that's interesting how that would work

14:23Tom Pelissero:um which would and i'm saying that listen and to be clear i'm saying that hypothetically but remember brendan soresby when this first came down back in may and was revealed publicly he checked into an inpatient clinic in Arizona for something like six weeks. The initial conversations between Brennan Sorsby, his legal team, and the NCAA were about a suspension, I would tell you, Rich, factually, was longer than the two games that was imposed by the judge that they ultimately went with here. So the NCAA could have, way back in the spring, further back than that, because this has been going on for a while that they were looking into this because Brennan Sorsby had been flagged by the gambling companies based upon, you know, his use of his accounts and his devices.

15:08Tom Pelissero:This could have been wrapped up back in the spring. He could have missed a bunch of games, come back and played at the end of the year. And you would have had a really talented quarterback on the college stage. What the NCAA has increasingly opted to do is try to, as I said, with, you know, you're talking about an earthquake that certainly impacts the NCAA, is you grab onto everything possible. And in that moment, when the ground is shaking, you may not be making logical decisions. I would say, Rich, and I understand the NCAA is trying to maintain relevance. They are trying to maintain some level of power as a governing body here.

15:42Tom Pelissero:You're trying to enforce that. But what's happening in court is you are repeatedly losing. You are repeatedly suffering these setbacks that chips away at your power. You have the conferences trying to say, well, we should be able to punish a school for playing a guy who we don't think he should have been eligible in the first place. And you have the other schools rebelling and talking about not scheduling Texas Tech. This all happens, Rich, because the NCAA, unlike the NFL, has just not had a history of, well, we're willing to reach a settlement. Most of the suspensions that occur in the NFL now are a product of negotiations.

16:21Tom Pelissero:When Deshaun Watson eventually served, I believe it was an 11-game suspension, that had been in the courts. That had gone back and forth. He's going to get six games. No, we want him to serve a year. You find somewhere in the middle and you meet because it's just not worth it to keep playing that thing out. We've seen other cases that have gone into the judicial system. I couldn't help but think, Rich, of the Zeke Elliott case back in 2017. I covered that for NFL Network in three federal courts in three states. He goes in ineligible for week one. I come out of a hearing and I'm on with you on the season preview edition saying he can play this week.

16:57Tom Pelissero:And it was like, wait, he can play this week. I'm like, that's what the attorneys just told me. He's in for this week. And then that was a back and forth and appeals. It just you lose control of the timeline here. Why the NCAA continues to do that? One can only ascertain it is about power and control. It's not about integrity of the game or anything else. with the NFL, they are nothing if not pragmatic on these matters. They want to be able to resolve things. Yes, they will fight and we've seen them in court, but you haven't seen it as much in recent years. If they try to unilaterally impose a suspension on Brendan Soresby, if they, and I don't believe that they would ever do this, but if they were to imply to teams, don't draft this guy, that's another world of legal problems.

17:41Tom Pelissero:There is a conversation to be had with a known adversary as you said in Jeffrey Kessler who's been at the NFLPA forever let's figure out a way that we don't have to end up in court in this and by the way Brendan Sorsby is a human being at the center of this again I will reiterate he is not a victim he placed these bets he did it knowingly it developed into what he has said and his doctors have said was an addiction a compulsion but he put himself in this position he is also a human being who at this point has lost millions of dollars and just wants to move on with his life and play football. He will hear it at every stadium he goes into.

18:17Tom Pelissero:He'll have to answer hard questions from the press. He'll have to answer questions from teams leading up to the supplemental draft about not just, well, why'd you make the bets? What did you learn in addiction training? But did you ever influence a game? Were you ever tempted to influence a game? That's the broader piece of this that, of course, teams have to get comfortable with. And again, that's where you have fertile ground here for everybody involved the NFL whatever team drafts him Brendan Soresby himself his representatives let's take the courts out of this this is not a courts issue this is a mental health issue at its core we wouldn't talk about drug addiction like this we wouldn't talk about if you had schizophrenia or some other type of a mental illness we would not talk about it like this this is a gambling compulsion but again if you took the phones of every college kid right now forget athletes every college kid who doesn't have these rules I would bet you a lot of them are making tons and tons of bets and they're just used to it the same way that i sit on the couch and scroll instagram at night and watch all of hockey fights or whatever the algorithm is sending me they're getting sent bets and your favorite media personality is saying hey i got my special bet tonight it's all part of this broader cultural thing here let's focus in on what makes sense he's a really talented player who has the chance to have a really really good nfl career i don't think it's the nfl's best interest to do anything more than figure out what is the right solution for everybody involved and

19:38Rich Eisen:move forward okay yeah old hockey fights that's what you're watching on instagram i'm sure

19:42Tom Pelissero:that is a yeah that is a huge one fights outside of sporting events i i've seen the algorithm seems to think i just want to see people get punched in the face all right so before i let you go there's

19:54Rich Eisen:two things so um we only have a few minutes to go here um who's interested what do you think happens with soresby who's interested in the nfl and him i i think that any team with even a passing

20:07Tom Pelissero:quarterback need now or in the foreseeable future has to be interested in Brennan Soresby enough to do all the homework on him if it gets to a day two pick. The real question is, would anybody go and use a first round draft pick to go and take Brennan Soresby in the supplemental draft? Again, guys who go into that supplemental draft and we've seen really talented players over the years, you know, going all the way back to the Bernie Kosars of the world in the 80s when And this was a more common thing, again, because of, I mean, I believe Bernie, if I'm not mistaken, just delayed submitting the paperwork because he wanted to go in the supplemental draft.

20:44Tom Pelissero:They've closed some of those loopholes since, but usually guys get downgraded because of ancillary issues. Certainly happened with Josh Gordon because of, you know, drug tests. It was at the time. The last player who was taking the supplemental draft was Jalen Thompson, who's had a really good career as a safety. And he was, I think, a fifth round pick by the Cardinals. If you were in a normal draft, probably would have gone higher. So with Soresby, you know, if you were setting, and I can't give gambling advice, I will definitely remind you in this segment on that. If I were setting the over-under, I'd probably say it's right on the second to third round border.

21:16Tom Pelissero:Hard to imagine a guy this talented gets past the third round. So if you want him, well, why not take him in the second? And if you're a team that doesn't have a high second, and you're thinking we're going to have a late one anyway, do we roll the dice on him? You know, we know that the Browns have two first round picks in next year's draft. Todd Monken has already made his feelings about the Soresby situation pretty known. So hard to imagine that that is going to be the team. There are other teams sitting on extra draft capital here. You can go down the list. It's all the teams right now, Rich, that have perhaps not their long-term quarterback answer.

21:51Tom Pelissero:Could the Arizona Cardinals that just took Carson Beck in the third round and are dealing with a contract standoff with Jacoby Brissett. They got Gardner Minshew in there on a one-year deal. Could the Vikings be interested? They've got Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy competing. That's a hard one to think that they would get into that bucket. But my point is, anybody who doesn't necessarily know who their franchise quarterback is going to be, you'd be foolish not to fully research this situation because if Brendan Soresby had come out in the 2026 draft before all this came out, which would have been a disaster in its own right for whatever team would have taken him, or if he had played out the season at Texas Tech and gone into the 2027 draft, depending of course on how he plays he quite possibly would have been a first round pick does anybody have let's just call it the guts or the crazy instincts whichever way you want to play it to just say he's a first round prospect and it's a quarterback i'll never have this opportunity again let's use a late first round pick and go get brendan soresby um this is going to be one of the most fascinating things it all starts here over these next six days withdrawing the lawsuit apply to the supplemental draft than whatever conversations go into this but the anticipation brendan sorsby and his legal team is once that is withdrawn he's once again ineligible at the ncaa level next stop is the nfl and we'll see where it shakes and then when when is the supplemental draft happen if it does there isn't even a date no one forget brendan sorsby no one has applied for the supplemental draft hasn't been a supplemental draft in seven years when would it be in prior years it's been the week after the fourth july it sounds like this one would probably be closer to the starts of training camps.

23:26Tom Pelissero:Everything's later this year. Teams aren't practicing in pads until the first week of August, so it would probably be mid to late July. That would be the timeline. In between, deadline is Monday to apply. That's June 22nd. You can meet with teams. You can hold a pro day. There's going to be a ton of background work, of course, that's going to be done. He can choose what visits, if any, he would want to take, what teams he would want to talk to. He can try to sculpt the process a little bit as well and then sometime right before training camp, somebody's going to be adding a very value a very talented quarterback to their room yeah and and

23:56Rich Eisen:who's july 4th weekend and july vacation plans just got blown up right i'm serious well i'm