Steelers Are Now Using Law Enforcement To Vet Brendan Sorsby

The Pittsburgh Steelers head into the 2026 NFL season with Aaron Rodgers back at the quarterback position. Their two younger quarterbacks in Will Howard and Drew Allar will have this season to learn under the four-time NFL MVP as he reunites with his former head coach Mike McCarthy. Despite having four total quarterbacks, which includes Mason Rudolph in the mix currently, there have been rumors about the franchise also being linked to Brendan Sorsby in the upcoming Supplemental Draft. 

Sorsby, a former Indiana University and Cincinnati Bearcats quarterback, made big headlines with off-the-field gambling issues. He recently withdrew a lawsuit against the NCAA, which made him ineligible to play college football in 2026, but he then declared for the Supplemental Draft. With the Steelers being speculated to have interest in him, they will be able to see if the gambling issues are deeper than what is on the surface.

In a recent episode of Steelers Collective, Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette elaborated on what resources Pittsburgh and other NFL franchises have at their disposal for when issues like this come up. While General Manager Omar Khan could add another quarterback to the roster, Fittipaldo discussed that it is not as cut and dry of a process like that. The details around these sources should ease the minds of many that may be concerned about the franchise potentially targeting the former Hoosier and Bearcat quarterback.

"They also have somebody who's in law enforcement on their staff," Fittipaldo said. "They are paid members of the staff, they help take care of things when things go awry off the field. Little bit of a legal problem, an arrest here, okay. The Steelers and other teams have people to take care of that. They also do a lot of digging into personal background information on these guys."

Conducting more extensive background checks and digging further into personal information is great news to protect the organization ahead of the Supplemental Draft, which is scheduled for late July. The team is looking to quickly retool under McCarthy and are clear in their direction of not wanting to conduct a full rebuild in the Steel City. 

Despite having these resources, the history surrounding Sorsby is very worrisome, especially given the team already has two young quarterbacks that their new head coach seems focused on developing.

Steelers Need Minimal Distractions To Quickly Rediscover Success

While it is believed Sorsby would have been taken high in the 2026 NFL Draft, the Steelers are focused on rediscovering playoff success. They also want to find that as quickly as possible, as the organization is starving for a playoff win given their nearly 10-year postseason win drought. Drafting a guy like this, even if it would just be in the Supplemental Draft, somewhat goes against what they are trying to accomplish.

The coaching staff is already putting in tremendous work with Allar and Howard. For Howard, McCarthy has mentioned that the former Ohio State quarterback has shown things in his game that has him intrigued with getting to work with him more. As for Allar, he seemingly lacked the clutch gene in big games during college, but the new Pittsburgh coaching staff is rebuilding him from the ground up in hopes to turn his physical traits into a productive and successful NFL quarterback.

It would likely be smart if the Steelers stayed away from this troubled quarterback, given their abundance of young signal-callers already on their roster and the goals in front of them for 2026. While the ceiling could be high for Sorsby, there is no telling exactly how deep the gambling issues could have gone. However, it is beneficial that the Black and Gold have resources to do some further digging if it needs to come to that.

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