Arch Manning has arrived, and his recent growth has put him back in the QB1 conversation atop the 2026 NFL Draft
Has Texas quarterback Arch Manning taken steps to become an elite NFL Draft prospect?
Much has been made about Texas quarterback Arch Manning’s NFL Draft prospects. The Longhorns’ signal-caller entered the season as the odds on favorite to be the first player selected in the 2026 NFL Draft on top of being the nearly-unanimous pick for the Heisman Trophy. Those expectations crashed and burned at the beginning of the season, as the Longhorns lost to Ohio State and Florida, and the CFB and Draft community moved on.
However, Arch’s stock has picked itself back up in recent weeks. It helps playing teams with embarrassingly poor defenses like Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, and Arkansas, but Manning took a trip against the Georgia Bulldogs in that stretch as well. The recent elevation in play has re-ignited the conversation around Manning, and one of the best draft analysts out there made a bold declaration about Manning.
I respect Nate a ton, so his words carry plenty of weight with me. Color me shocked to see him throw that out there in a quarterback class already featuring the likes of Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza, Oregon’s Dante Moore, and Alabama’s Ty Simpson, and I was initially skeptical of his claim. However, I was also intrigued to see just what prompted Nate to make such a declaration, so I dove into Manning’s film against the Bulldogs. What I found was a…pleasant surprise.
Arch Manning looked like an NFL Quarterback
I was in the camp of “Wait and see” when it came to Arch Manning. In the preseason, I thought we were getting way over our skis on a player we hadn’t seen much of anything from, especially with the limited action we did see of him was against awful competition and/or cleanup duty. His mechanics were still fairly shoddy, and I had no idea just how good of a processor he was, since he was rarely challenged.
Nothing he did against Ohio State, Florida, or Oklahoma really did much to change my mind. He was obviously physically talented, but it takes much more than that to be an NFL-caliber quarterback. However, the film against Georgia had some promising reps that serve as evidence (in my opinion) that the game is slowing down for him, and have him on the pathway of being a coveted NFL quarterback prospect.
This was early on in the game against Georgia. Texas is backed up right on the goal line, and you knew the Bulldogs were going to do their best to force a safety. Watch Arch stand strong in the pocket here, keep his eyes downfield, navigate a muddy pocket, and deliver a strike across the middle of the field for an explosive gain.
Arch’s toughness and willingness to play in the pocket is a strong trait of his. Georgia dared him to beat the blitz with his arm, and his willingness to take a hit while he delivered popped constantly through this game. He also routinely showed off good ability to navigate muddy pockets while keeping his eyes downfield.
Texas draws a fair amount of schemed-up, one-read looks for Manning, so it isn’t constant throughout his film, but there were some really nice reps of Manning scanning through his reads and delivering.
It also helps to have plus arm talent to rip throws like this consistently.
For a TL; DR of the positives, I thought this was a strong game overall for Manning despite the relatively middling production. Manning had a lot of positive throws, but only completed 62.8% of his passes for 251 yards and a touchdown. Some of that was Georgia rallying to eliminate a lot of the underneath passes, but Manning was let down by some rather poor drops throughout the game. He kept his eyes downfield against a strong Georgia defense, navigated pressure fairly well, and was still calmly aggressive when many other quarterbacks would have turtled up.
I was stunned how pedestrian Texas’s offense looks from a personnel standpoint. Head coach Steve Sarkisian was still drawing up effective concepts, but the Longhorns’ offensive line could barely hold up against three-man rushes and the receivers struggled getting open consistently. As much as Quinn Ewers was a scheme+talent merchant in this offense last year, the inverse is held true for Manning this season. He’s the only thing keeping the Longhorns afloat right now.
It wasn’t all perfect for Arch
I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up some of the negatives with Manning in this one. While there were plenty of encouraging moments on his film, there were also moments where I would definitely understand a decision to return to school.
Quite frankly, Arch’s mechanics are still…well, saying “inconsistent at best” is the nicest way to put it. For someone with the last name of Manning, his mechanics should have been the last thing I’d be concerned with, but they are all over the place, leading to some fairly poor throws and issues with his timing.
Take a look at the interception against Georgia. The Longhorns run a simple Dagger concept and motion over the crosser to help catch the Bulldogs’ defense in match. Arch makes the right read, getting to the dig route over the middle, but watch what happens on this throw. He doesn’t follow through at all on the throw, winging it all arm. The throw sails way over his receiver into the arms of a waiting Bulldog defender, and it derails a promising drive.
There are little motions with his release that I feel like delays his timing and accuracy as well. He holds the ball so low that he has further to go with his release, delaying the ball being out by a hair longer than it needs to be. When he’s practically holding the ball to your stomach, he has to expand his motion out and down and then around before throwing.
Tacking on the fact that there is little to no follow through from his lower half, and it makes for a fairly awkward release. Some passes are just a beat too slow, limiting YAC. In the college game, you can get away with it. In the NFL….not so much
The worst part is, Manning’s baseline mechanics varied snap-to-snap to the point where figuring out what he truly looks like as a passer takes far, far too long to figure out. Again, for a Manning, I’m simply baffled by the fact he looks like that as a passer. He’s been groomed for his entire life on how to play quarterback, surrounded by some of the best to ever do it with a family that can certainly afford private QB coaches, and…he doesn’t use his lower half at all.
Final Thoughts
I was a skeptic at first, but I have to admit: Nate Tice was cooking with his take on Arch Manning. Manning is still an extremely talented passer with great tools and competitive toughness. I admire his play from the pocket and aggressive mindset even when under pressure. He showed off strong decisiveness and accuracy to every level of the field as well. There were plenty of positives with his progression speed, and while he wasn’t perfect, he was still well ahead of several other college quarterbacks I’ve seen.
However, I can also see exactly why he would want to return to school for another season. His mechanics are simply not NFL-ready, and I would like to see another year to really iron out the processing and turn it into an elite strength of his game. I, and other decision-makers, also aren’t thrilled on drafting guys with just a single year of starts under their belts either.
This does prompt an argument, however, of exactly why he should declare. Can you trust the coaching at Texas to solve this if this is what it looks like three years in? Keep in mind how far Ewers’ stock fell over time with the Longhorns. Can you risk an injury next season behind this abysmal offensive line when he could already cash in on an NFL check? If Arch has the chance to sit on a team that already has a quarterback like the Los Angeles Rams and work out his issues without the pressure to deliver immediately, that has to be an appealing option to him and his family.
Compared to the field of the top NFL Draft quarterbacks, Manning is more physically gifted than both Mendoza and Moore, while his decision-making was ahead of what we’ve seen from Simpson over the last month. Just like all three, he is elevating his team, but I would argue he is battling the worst surroundings of the lot as well, given Texas’s abysmal coaching on the offensive line and regression at wide receiver.
I completely understand why Tice would launch a take like this, as it’s one I can come around to if the Arch I get is the one I saw against the Bulldogs.
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