After seven years of irrelevance, the NFL’s supplemental draft returns to the front burner — and it could quickly reach a full boil.
Monday’s decision by quarterback Brendan Sorsby to abandon his effort to play for Texas Tech and to instead apply for the supplemental draft puts the process front and center for the NFL and any teams interested in using a 2027 draft pick early.
That’s how it works, in general. Whoever takes Sorsby with a pick used in the 2026 supplemental draft loses that pick in the 2027 draft.
The relevant language from the Collective Bargaining Agreement appears at Article 6, Section 2(c): “If a player who was not eligible for the Draft in any League Year becomes eligible after the date of the Draft, he will be eligible to be selected in a Supplemental Draft, if the League elects to conduct such a Draft, on or before the seventh calendar day prior to the opening of the first training camp that League Year. No player may elect to bypass a Draft for which he is eligible to apply for selection in a Supplemental Draft. Any Club that selects a player in a Supplemental Draft must forfeit a choice in the same round in the next succeeding principal Draft.”
A player hasn’t been picked in the supplemental draft since 2019. The league last held a supplemental draft in 2023.
Priority for the supplemental draft, per SI.com, is determined by splitting the 32 teams into three groups: teams with six or fewer wins the year before, non-playoff teams with more than six wins, and playoff teams. Priority within each group is finalized by a weighted lottery, with teams having the fewest wins getting greater consideration. (Hey, the NFL has a draft lottery, after all.)
Once the priority is determined, it becomes a round-by-round guessing game. Teams with lower priority could be tempted to bid their pick earlier than they believe a team with higher priority would do so.
For now, the first step for Sorsby will be to apply, and for the NFL to grant his request to enter via the supplemental draft. As Article 6, Section 2(d) makes clear: “No player shall be eligible to be employed by an NFL Club until he has been eligible for selection in an NFL Draft.”
Sorsby, by withdrawing his lawsuit against the NCAA and accepting its determination that his eligibility has been lost, seems to fit the criteria for entering the supplemental draft. That doesn’t prevent, however, the NFL from deciding otherwise. Nothing, on the surface, would stop the league from deeming that Sorsby (for example) knew or should have known his eligibility for 2026 was going to be extinguished and that he essentially “elected to bypass a Draft for which he [was] eligible.”
However it plays out, the ball will be in the NFL’s court, once Sorsby applies for the supplemental draft.
