Even when he was still in high school, Arch Manning was viewed as an elite NFL quarterback prospect with a bright future ahead of him. But even though he will be eligible for the NFL Draft following next season, it sounds like he could stay in college longer than that.
While Arch Manning is already penciled in among the top quarterbacks in the 2026 NFL Draft, there’s a chance that he could opt to skip the 2026 NFL Draft and remain in college with the Texas Longhorns for longer than that, given how unfriendly the NFL has become for young quarterbacks when it comes to their development.
Simply put, the NFL is no longer a place where young quarterbacks can expect to be developed. Instead, they are expected to be ready to perform and thrive immediately.
In fact, NFL Draft insider Matt Miller recently reported that NFL scouts and agents are even suggesting that quarterbacks should ideally not even enter the NFL Draft until they have at least two years of experience as a starting quarterback at the college level.
“Scouts and agents are telling college QBs to not leave school until they’ve started 2+ years. The NFL doesn’t truly develop QBs anymore outside of rare exceptions,” Miller said in a post on X, the social media website that was formerly known as Twitter.
This, coupled with the recent struggles from other young quarterbacks like Anthony Richardson and Bryce Young, led Lior Lampert of Fansided to speculate that Arch Manning might decide to stay in school longer than expected rather than enter the NFL when he is eligible.
“Knowing the quarterback rookie-scale contract window is a time to maximize a franchise’s Super Bowl efforts in today’s league, the margin for error is slim. Because of this, organizations like the Colts (and Panthers) take drastic measures, ostensibly cutting their losses prematurely,” Lampert prefaced before saying, “With that in mind and time on his side, Manning can reconsider what path he wants to take.
“As many expected, the beginning of Richardson’s NFL career has been turbulent, with more valleys than peaks. Not only was he never considered a finished product throughout the draft evaluation process, but his status as a raw albeit tantalizing prospect was widely known. Thus far, it’s panned out that way to a tee. Yet, rather than letting him experience the growing pains, the Colts are pivoting to Flacco. Someone in Manning’s camp is surely keeping tabs on this and thinking about how it may impact his impending future.”
We’ll have to see whether or not that holds true for Manning.
