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00:01All right, fine. Let's just bring in Brendan Sorsby.
00:04No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Ryan Wilson.
00:07Well, let's see. Maybe I'll change my mind after we talk to Ryan Wilson.
00:10He's on the Wise Heart Right, We Make It Right called Kyle Wright Hotline,
00:13NFL Draft Analyst, CBS Sports, NFL Analyst, CBS Sports, cbssports.com,
00:19CBS Sports HQ, also with the First Pick Podcast with Rand Carthon,
00:24also from QVC, just all over the place.
00:27Ryan Wilson joins us right now. Hello, Ryan.
00:30Hey, good morning, guys. Odd talking to you in the middle of June. What's going on?
00:34Well, it's because of the Sorsby stuff, okay?
00:38There's a lot of people who, why even bother?
00:40Well, because the quarterback room isn't set. That's why you bother.
00:44And I'm not going to give away what I can tell.
00:46There's one coach, his statement that I'm going to play for everybody at 845
00:50might change my mind a little bit, but I want to ask you first.
00:54Do you think he has what it takes to be a, quote, top five pick in 2027?
01:02Yeah. No, he does.
01:03We're just strictly talking on the field right now because, obviously,
01:06we know about everything else that's going on.
01:08Of course.
01:08And that's what teams are going to have to weigh.
01:10But on the field, and I just got finished because we're going to start,
01:13you mentioned the podcast, Rand and I are going to start our summer scouting
01:16with the quarterbacks this week.
01:17So I've seen more Brandon Sorsby than probably anybody who is not, you know,
01:24who's paying attention to this just because we were getting ready to talk about it
01:26before he decided to declare for the supplemental draft.
01:30Yeah, I didn't love him in the fall just sort of watching on Saturdays
01:34along with everyone else.
01:34But when I went back and looked a little closer, number one,
01:38like if you were just watching on the black and white television
01:40and you didn't see the name on the back of the jerseys,
01:4210 times out of 10 you would take Sorsby over Arch Manning,
01:45even though Arch played great down the stretch last year.
01:47But we know all that comes with Arch.
01:48So it is real, the stuff he can do on the field.
01:52And he can do things that not a lot of quarterbacks can do.
01:55He's big and he's strong.
01:56And he was more of a running quarterback than a passing quarterback in Indiana
02:00before he transferred Cincinnati.
02:02And he has one of the best deep balls in college football.
02:06And he can consistently make plays out of structure,
02:08but he's not necessarily looking to run first.
02:11So there are a lot of positives on the field.
02:13He can be reckless at times, and he maybe makes throws he doesn't,
02:17maybe shouldn't make, sort of some Jackson Dart in his game
02:19in terms of that stuff.
02:20But if you're asking me right now, would he go in the top five?
02:24Yeah, and I'll just say it this way.
02:25There were some, I heard Tom Pellisar mentioned that he may have been
02:28QB1 last year.
02:29And I'm sure Tom talked to people and they're telling him that.
02:31I understand that part.
02:32I would not have taken over Fernando as the totality of the quarterback.
02:36But there would have been a real conversation about him and Ty Simpson.
02:39And Ty went 13th.
02:39So you can do the math, and would he go five or six spots higher than 13?
02:43Yeah, I feel pretty confident saying that that might be a high likelihood of that.
02:47Ryan Wilson joining us.
02:49Then with all the positive things you just said,
02:51it's hard to ignore losing five straight games.
02:56I know wins and losses, not just a quarterback stat,
02:58but in college it kind of is a pretty big deal,
03:00and there's a strong correlation.
03:01Losing five straight two years ago, and last year losing his last four.
03:06Or is that all on the team?
03:08Is that just to show how raw he still is?
03:12No, and that's a great point.
03:14I think Bruce Feldman wrote about that last week in The Athletic.
03:16And it got my attention as well.
03:18One and 11 in November in the last two and a half or three years,
03:21whatever it was.
03:22And look, the whole point of drafting a quarterback top five
03:25is a win game from December and January.
03:27And they weren't bad.
03:28Cincinnati was a pretty good team last year.
03:30Part of it was he didn't play as well as perhaps he could have in the big moments.
03:33And the other issue is he struggled with some drops and not to make excuses.
03:37But he is not a quarterback where you watch him play in those games in November
03:41and go, okay, this guy can't figure it out.
03:44It was just more a victim of circumstance.
03:46Again, I don't want to make excuses for him because if you're drafted top ten,
03:50you've got to win football games.
03:51But those are real and legitimate concerns.
03:54And sort of the way we were having the conversations about what's going on
03:56with Ty Simpson in the second half of the season with the deep ball accuracy
04:00and what was going on with that.
04:01And he was banged up.
04:03I don't know if Brandon was hurt or not.
04:05But those are real concerns and those are things you have to confront
04:08in addition to all the other stuff you have to talk about
04:10that didn't have to do with football.
04:14Man, so you're really saying he'd still be a top five guy?
04:18On the field.
04:19Off the field, no.
04:21That's a lot of math that these teams have to do.
04:24And I know I've heard people say,
04:26well, do you want the guy touching the ball every single time
04:29that's bet $90,000 on college sports, including his own team,
04:34when he wasn't playing?
04:35And if you watch the way he competes and the throws he makes,
04:40and look, man, I don't own a team,
04:42so no one cares whether I think it's worth taking it or not.
04:45I don't get the – my impression isn't that he is going to be throwing games.
04:49That said, it's a huge risk for a coach, a GM, an owner,
04:53when their jobs are on the line outside of the owner,
04:56to take someone with so much baggage.
04:59And it's – I will be surprised how the supplemental draft works out
05:05if he ends up going in the first round unless he's going to a place
05:08that has everything in place to make sure.
05:10And, you know, I think Texas Tech said something like
05:12we blocked all the apps on his phone.
05:14Like, bro, come on now.
05:16That's like telling your teenager not to find the – you know,
05:19back in the 80s, not to find the magazines you hid or whatever.
05:23All right, Ryan, obviously –
05:25I can't say – my dad listens, so I can't say –
05:27Yeah, we're not going over that.
05:29Obviously, Ryan, there is going to be a lot of difficult decisions
05:33and discussions to be had for the NFL teams as they're doing their deep dive.
05:37You know, I was told the Browns already, before this even happened,
05:41you know, had been doing the legwork because all the quarterbacks next year,
05:44you're going to be doing substantial legwork.
05:47And also, the Browns drafted somebody who, you know, used to be a teammate of his.
05:51And so they've got plenty of film already on this quarterback.
05:54With that said, man, the conversations that these teams would want to have with him,
05:59obviously the Browns have taken guys with character concerns before,
06:02but this is new.
06:04This is new territory, not just for the Browns, but for all these teams.
06:07Are you hearing anything about how different this is going to be
06:10to evaluate their character?
06:13Yeah, you're right.
06:15It's 100% different because, you know, it's not someone driving 120 and a 35.
06:20It's not some of the things.
06:21And some of the things that these players have done are not, in fact, great.
06:24Well, there's domestic violence issues or whatever going down that road.
06:27But this is unfamiliar territory in that it's gambling, which historically has meant,
06:33okay, that's a wrap.
06:34We're out of here.
06:35Kayshawn Booty actually wrote about it.
06:37He admitted to gambling while at LSU, and the Patriots actually helped him.
06:41But he was also a late day three pick, if not undrafted, if I recall correctly.
06:46So that's a different conversation.
06:47But NFL teams, I talked to a couple people in the league, and they essentially said this.
06:53If you had a first or second round, this was before sorts of being announced yesterday.
06:56If you had a first or second round grade on the quarterback, you could probably talk
07:01yourself into taking them.
07:02This would have been during the actual draft next April.
07:04If you had a day three, and some teams think he's a developmental guy.
07:08Not a lot of teams, but some people don't love him as much as other people.
07:10But you're just going to pass.
07:11You're going to take him off the board, like we hear about all the time during the pre-draft
07:14process, whether it's injury-related or whether it's obstacle-related.
07:17So it's just going to be the risk and the tolerance you're willing to put up with to take a
07:23gamble
07:23on this young man.
07:25And every quarterback you draft, even the model citizens, are risked because they work out
07:30first-round picks less than 50% of the time.
07:33So, you know, guys, teams that are desperate, guys whose jobs are on the line sometimes do
07:39things they wouldn't do under normal circumstances.
07:41And maybe you roll the dice, pardon the pun, on a quarterback to hope you get the best version
07:47of that guy.
07:48And I don't know anything about Brandon.
07:49I don't know where he is in terms of overcoming the addiction.
07:52But these are certainly all deep dives these teams are going to have to figure out.
07:55Well, damn, Ryan.
07:55I'm sitting here over here, Ryan Wilson, joining us on the show.
07:57And I've been saying it for the last couple of weeks whenever it's been brought up.
08:01I'm going, man, you know, I've had a lot of callers say a lot of things.
08:04If he goes out there and he has a bad game, first off, the jokes are going to be unbearable.
08:09Second of all, I'm going to have fans seriously questioning his integrity.
08:14And then, you know what, if he continues to struggle, you know, wide receivers in this
08:17league, what happens if one of them gets upset?
08:20Like, I'm getting sent, because Lime asked me, he goes, how would you feel if the Steelers
08:24got him?
08:24And I'm getting the Photoshop AI crap of Brennan Soresby sitting next to DK Metcalf.
08:29And I'm thinking, could you imagine how great it would be for a Browns fan to hear DK Metcalf
08:33popping off, wondering if Brennan Soresby's throwing games as his quarterback?
08:38I mean, how delicious would that be for a Browns fan to hear?
08:42And I'm like, I don't want that situation playing out for us.
08:45I don't want it playing out for us.
08:46I mean, if you want to say a quarterback's bad, fine.
08:49If you want to say a quarterback is possibly throwing games, or the question of him throwing
08:55games is out there, nah, that's a killer.
08:58That's a fan base killer.
09:00Because, I mean, this fan base has been through so much.
09:01They go through that.
09:02It's like, how do you come back from something like that?
09:04Especially when we've all looked at the 2027 draft class, Ryan, as this golden draft class
09:11for the first time since 2018.
09:14Right.
09:14And you guys, I think the Browns have three first-round picks.
09:17I think that's where they are now.
09:18Two.
09:18Right now they have two, right?
09:20Okay, they have two.
09:21Two.
09:22It feels like, yeah, whatever they have, it feels like they can get up to as high as
09:26number two, assuming the team at number one doesn't come off it and takes either Arch
09:30or Dante Moore.
09:31But there are going to be guys.
09:33Jaden Maiava at USC, CJ Card, Notre Dame, Julian Sane at Ohio State.
09:37All those guys have chances to make their way into the first round.
09:41So, and none of them, as far as we know, come with any off-field baggage.
09:45So, right, that's the math you have to do.
09:47And I think that's an important point that you're making, Ken, also because, and we were
09:51talking about this last week, we will now get an opportunity to see how Brendan Soarsby,
09:55should he play at Texas Tech, deals with adversity.
09:57Because all the things you just talked about were going to happen every single week that
10:01Texas Tech was not playing at home.
10:02And maybe even sometimes when they were playing at home.
10:04And one incomplete pass, one interception, one bad series, he was going to have to hear
10:09it.
10:09And the other side of this, and you can think of what you want about Brendan being a person
10:14with a gambling addiction, he's only 22 or whatever.
10:17So now you're putting all this on this young man who probably feels like he's carrying the
10:20weight of the world.
10:21And in some sense, it's unfair.
10:23And you can say he didn't have to gamble, and I understand that.
10:25But the reality is, if you have 80,000 people calling you a horrible human being because
10:29you're doing a incomplete pass and accusing you of cheating, that probably weighs on you
10:34after a time.
10:35So those things are all things that you would imagine NFL teams are going to have to talk
10:38about and consider.
10:40Because I would imagine Soarsby's out of options right now.
10:43Because Texas Tech, they were about to get sued, and now he had to end the supplemental
10:47draft, and it's out of his hands.
10:48And NFL teams will have to decide, ultimately, is he worth that risk?
10:52What about the NFL suspension that is looming?
10:56Obviously, the NFL has had players come right into the league and had to serve as suspension.
11:01But these are very, very different times.
11:04And is there any kind of gauge from NFL teams on what we'd be looking at?
11:11I mean, Albert Breer said, well, this would be a redshirt year for him anyway.
11:13But the Browns would have to see him play football before they would cross off the list all the
11:19talented quarterbacks in the next draft.
11:22Right.
11:23So, Kayshawn Booty, I don't think Kayshawn was suspended, even though the gambling allegations
11:28came out well.
11:30I'm not sure of the timeline.
11:31But he gambled in college.
11:32I don't think he was suspended once he got into the league.
11:34Terrell Pryor, you have to go back 15 years, was suspended for what happened in college.
11:39And you could argue unfairly, because the new job has nothing to do with what he was doing
11:44as an amateur.
11:45Soresby has hired a pretty powerful lawyer in Jeffrey Kessler, who's trying to grease
11:50those wheels and make sure that doesn't happen.
11:52There's only so much he can do.
11:53But the situations with Calvin Ridley, who was suspended, there's another NFL player suspended
11:58for a few games.
11:59Those were while in the NFL and gambling.
12:03And those were different.
12:04And Calvin, I think, got a whole year.
12:06And another player whose name I can't remember now got some subset of that.
12:09So it could be a situation where he's out six games.
12:12It could be a situation where the NFL, maybe one or two games, Texas Tech was going to
12:16suspend them two games.
12:17And I would imagine the NFL would prefer not to have this headache.
12:21But here we are, and they're going to have to make some decisions.
12:24And we know historically Roger Goodell has made decisions that necessarily wouldn't be
12:29what would happen in a court of law, because this is a little different.
12:32But obviously, Brendan Sorsby is trying to reduce as much as possible and allow him to
12:37play.
12:37And the NFL might have a different opinion, maybe based on what they're hearing from
12:41owners and public perception.
12:43Let's be fair.
12:44A lot of times that does sway how big corporations act.
12:47It's June 16th.
12:49Who would you start for the Browns right now?
12:52Deion Sanders.
12:53Well, that'd be a hell of a story.
12:55Shador Sanders or Deshaun Watson?
12:57Yeah.
12:58You guys know better than me.
13:00Oh, God, what a terrible response that was.
13:01Oh, Lord.
13:02You don't think either one of them are very good, do you?
13:05Well, Shador has upside.
13:07I think, and tell me what you guys think of this.
13:09Is it a waste of time to think that Deshaun Watson's going to be even 70% of the Houston
13:15Texans versus?
13:16Probably.
13:17I think it's a waste of time.
13:18Yeah.
13:18I do.
13:19Yeah.
13:19So maybe Shador, because I just heard, I think Todd was talking, Todd Monkham was talking
13:23about how, or maybe it was Andrew Barrett, he talked about how much he's improved over
13:25the last six weeks.
13:26I don't know if that's something he just routinely says in the middle of June about the young
13:29quarterback, but you just roll with that.
13:31That was on our show, even though I wasn't the one, yeah, I wasn't the one hosting it.
13:35I was off that.
13:35There you go.
13:36So yeah, and roll with Shador, see if he's gotten better.
13:39Todd Monkham's good with quarterbacks, young and old, and you're going to draft one next
13:43year anyway.
13:43So go young and see what you have and go from there.
13:46And that's part of my problem with it is I think some people are making an argument going,
13:49well, Kenny, I mean, neither of these guys are going to be on the quarter, be the quarterback
13:52for the Browns next year.
13:53And I'm going, yeah, but I want to get it right.
13:54I just don't want to, I don't want to go after Sorsby just because his name isn't Sanders
13:58or Watson.
13:59That doesn't make my situation any better.
14:01If I don't believe he's going to be, if I don't believe that they're going to handle
14:05him right or that he's going to be able to handle himself right.
14:07I don't know.
14:08That's why I'm so upset that this season that he was going to play for a team that I don't
14:12care about.
14:13So I was excited to see him have a year-long job interview and to see whether or not he
14:18could handle all this.
14:19And now I don't get to do it.
14:20I'm like, well, yet.
14:22And so now we have to be the experiment for guys who have open gambling problems here.
14:25Why do we have to be the ones?
14:27I'll let somebody else take that risk.
14:28And he ends up being an all-time Hall of Famer.
14:30Well, okay.
14:31Throw another log on the fire of things I've been wrong about.
14:34No, and that's a good way to put it, because I think some NFL teams will be frustrated that
14:39they didn't get the opportunity to see whose Sorsby could be sort of under the
14:43in this pressure cooker of a 2026 college season, and now you're left to sort of imagine
14:49what it would have looked like and then project with your own money, perhaps, how this play
14:55out.
14:55So I'm with you, and I'm always of the opinion that you just draft as many quarterbacks as
15:00you can, realistically, until you get it right.
15:02And the Browns took tail and green on day three.
15:05Let's see how that goes.
15:06And, you know, typically day three quarterbacks don't work out, but I don't know if it makes
15:10sense to double down, especially if you only have those two first-round picks.
15:13For some reason, I thought it was three.
15:14So you're burning one of those, or even a second-round pick, maybe you feel better about it in the
15:18supplemental draft, because you're not going to have that pick in April, when a quarterback
15:22you may feel a lot better about is available and a little cleaner off the field.
15:28Ryan, thank you so much for the time.
15:29We appreciate it.
15:30Everybody go listen to the With the First Take, or With the First Pick podcast with him
15:34and Rand Carthon.
15:34Ryan, thank you.
15:36Thank you, guys.
15:37Ryan Wilson, CBS Sports.
15:38On the Wisehart-Wright, we make it right called Kyle Wright Hotline.
15:40He said a lot of strong stuff there.
15:42Did he really say he'd take him over Arch Manning?
15:45I couldn't believe.
15:46I mean, if anything, I think you had Ryan Wilson on thinking, all right, that'll quiet some
15:50of the Sorsby stuff.
15:51If anything, it did the opposite.
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