Would it bother you if a player bet on the Seahawks to win?
Should fans be bothered, worried, or offended if a player bets on his own team or sport?
Some people think that the entire sport of football is facing a crisis this week, based on the court ruling that allows Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby to return to college next season despite gambling on his own games, among other bets.
My question is:
If a Seahawks player was caught betting on the Seahawks to win, what punishment do you think he should face, if any?
I say “great” in the survey because I do think fans sometimes bend their opinions around the importance of the player in question. I’m not judging anyone for it, but there’s a difference between Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Irvin Charles. The Seahawks cut an undrafted free agent receiver earlier this year because they felt he was dishonest with the team (former Seahawks executive and current Vikings GM Nolan Teasley has since signed that same player to Minnesota’s roster).
Would they even bother wasting JSN’s time with a sit-down if they felt he wasn’t disclosing something to the team?
There are different rules for everybody. So if Sam Darnold or JSN or Devon Witherspoon was caught betting on the Seahawks to win games, should that player be punished by the NFL?
Does the Sorsby case matter to us?
Although college football has too many issues for me to consider myself a fan of that league, the system serves as the only pipeline to the league that I actually care about. It’s not like the NBA, where many players come from overseas and often bypass college basketball to turn pro. Or MLB, which has the minor leagues. With very few exceptions, every player in NFL history spent at least three years in a college program—so even people like me who dislike college football need to follow it for information.
The NFL relies on college football much like healthcare relies on medical schools. Not everybody with a medical license should be trusted with your life, but at least there’s a system in place that allows for checks and balances, like if you need to sue your doctor for malpractice.
Sorsby’s case just seems like the inevitable outcome of a system that has been going down the drain for years, but exacerbated by the decisions made around 2020-2021 to open up the transfer portal and allow players to get paid to play football. I’m not even saying that I’m against either of those things in principle, but it’s more like, “What did you expect to happen?”
I was addicted to gambling when I was in college and I wasn’t getting paid hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to play sports there. I was eating $5 footlongs. A perfect storm of smart phones, legal gambling apps, and paying college athletes has resulted in “Brandon Sorsby” (who isn’t the first and won’t be the last) because that’s what had to happen.
Why people are pissed off
But gambling is not even the “crisis” that has led to people running college football programs, including Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer, telling the world that they are prepared to blacklist Texas Tech athletics if Sorsby ever suits up for them:
No, what those athletic directors and coaches are mad about is the fact that Sorsby’s perma-ban from college sports was overruled by local courts and judges who are alumni of Texas Tech. Essentially, if you can’t kick Brendan Sorsby out of college, then who can you kick out?
The answer is clear: Nobody.
And if you can’t stop Sorsby from playing college football after he admitted to betting on his own team, then what’s to prevent players from doing this in the future?
Nothing.
Sorsby may have bet on Indiana (his first of three college stops) to win, which seems like it couldn’t hurt. However, what if he was betting on the number of touchdowns he would throw? Or the number of points the team would win by? This could then change strategy—and ultimately cause the team to lose.
Betting on a game you are playing in, especially as the most important player on the field, has negative consequences that are inevitable. Sort of like everything that has happened to college football over the last 50 years.
Will NFL vets go back to college?
I know many of you are fans of Washington or Washington State. Well, what if the Huskies wanted to sign Trey Lance or Anthony Richardson to play for them next season? What if they wanted to go back to college and try again before re-entering the NFL after a couple more seasons?
I honestly think nobody could stop that from happening, and we’ve already seen hints of it.
A basketball player was allowed to go back to college after signing a contract with the Spurs. A player for Washington State, Nathaniel Salmon, was in Chargers rookie minicamp last year.
We may not be far off from college football becoming a minor league for the NFL—including veterans—and having nothing to do with academics at all. Sure, academics have not mattered in a long time, but eligibility used to be based around those “four years”. Those days are long gone; Cam McCormick was granted NINE years of eligibility.
Maybe turning college football into a minor leagues with no eligibility rules is not a bad thing. Sports need to evolve with the times and certainly there are cases—like Richardson and Lance—where going back to college would be better for everyone. Fans and players and teams alike.
I don’t know enough about college football or the law to really make any smart comments about this topic, but it is interesting to watch the Sorsby case play out and also vital to the future of the NFL.
Would you be okay with a player on your favorite team betting on the sport?
The NFL has gambling rules—for now
In recent years, players like Jameson Williams and Calvin Ridley were suspended for sports betting. Ridley was suspended a year for gambling on NFL games, whereas Williams didn’t bet on the NFL but was suspended six games for placing college football bets while at team facilities.
These are examples of players who are very important to their teams, so they can continue playing. Others, like Shaka Toney and Quintez Cephus, were not that good and never played again after they were suspended.
It goes back to what I said before, which is that we can’t expect someone like Charles Cross to be handled the same as someone like Jacardia Wright. Ridley bet on his own team, the Falcons, and he’s still in the NFL making millions of dollars. He even got votes for Comeback Player of the Year in 2023—that being that he “came back” from being suspended for breaking perhaps the most sacred rule of organized sports.
Yes, there are far, far, far worse things that a human being can do, and players violate those rules all the time unfortunately, and often with fewer/lesser consequences than gambling, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
We’re talking about how the perception of “real” sports changes when money is involved. It’s like when Butch takes a dive in Pulp Fiction. Now it’s not a sport, it’s an act.
The NFL is already dealing with “staged” accusations on a regular basis. What Calvin Ridley and Sorsby did—and what other players will certainly do in the future—only advances those arguments that football is more of a play, than something that is played.
So if someone on your favorite team bet on his sport, even his own team, would you have an issue with it?
I’m going to run the same poll again from the beginning and see if the results changed at all.
Seaside Joe 2654
Did you miss yesterday’s Seaside Joe? Seahawks 2026 practice squad projection
Bets aren't limited to "win" or "lose." They can include "win, but by less than the spread." They can include no bet on outcome at all, but only on points scored, for example. Players have no business making bets like that, for very obvious reasons.
I have a very strong anti-gambling bias. Growing up I saw the impact it had on my family. (Why the hell are we having PBJ sandwiches for dinner three nights in a row?) On the one hand an adult should be allowed to do whatever they want. But once upon a time they banned cigarette advertisements, and it should happen again with gambling. I would love to ban advertising for gambling at the very least. It will never happen because the politicians are getting paid to vote in favor of gambling interests. If I had my way I’d outlaw gambling.