With quarterback Brendan Sorsby intending to apply for the NFL’s supplemental draft, some are watching and waiting to see whether the NFL will welcome him to the ranks of professional football.
Two key questions have arisen, from the NFL’s perspective. First, will the league accept Sorsby into the supplemental draft? Second, will Commissioner Roger Goodell impose a suspension on Sorsby for underage (and thus illegal) gambling and/or for betting on Indiana games while he was on the Indiana roster (but not playing)?
The Terrelle Pryor precedent has caused some in league circles to believe the league will try to simulate the NCAA’s punishment — basically, no football at all in 2026. In 2011, the league placed a five-game suspension on former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor, mirroring the suspension that was imposed on Pryor by the NCAA.
Then there’s the case of Kayshon Boutte. Earlier this year, he wrote an article for the Players’ Tribune regarding his gambling addiction while in college.
“I’d wake up early in the morning, and the first thing I’d do was bet,” Boutte wrote. “I’d stay up late and bet. All day. All night. I had insomnia, so if I woke up in the middle of the night, phone next to the bed, I’d bet. Any little money I had, it was going straight to FanDuel. . . . I knew I was addicted.”
Boutte said he started gambling after suffering an injury at LSU that left him unable to play. Betting was his way of replacing the sense of competition.
He made more than 8,900 bets, with at least six bets placed on LSU. The wagering continued until at least one week after Boutte was drafted in 2023. (Boutte didn’t turn 21 until May 7, 2023.)
None of that came to light until after Boutte’s rookie season with the Patriots, when he was charged with underage betting in Louisiana. The charges were later dismissed. Most importantly, the NFL took no action against Boutte.
Of course, Boutte had completed a full season in the NFL by the time the story broke of his underage betting habits. If the league had suspended him then, the league would have been drawing more attention to the fact that Boutte’s behavior had slipped through the cracks at a time when the NFL could have, in theory, known about his betting issues.
With Sorsby, the issue has come to light before his NFL career begins. Based on the fact that the NFL did nothing to Boutte, the timing of the disclosure shouldn’t matter.
That may not stop the league from doing whatever it believes it has to do, given the intense focus on the Sorsby situation — and given that multiple gambling scandals have emerged in other sports since Boutte’s arrest in January 2024.
