The cat is out of the bag when it comes to Tennessee Vols legend Peyton Manning’s son Marshall
Tennessee Volunteers legend and Pro Football Hall of Fame member Peyton Manning has a teenage son who already looks like the future of college football and maybe the NFL, too.
It’s safe to say that the cat is officially out of the bag when it comes to Marshall Manning, the teenage son of Tennessee Vols legend and Hall of Famer Peyton Manning.
Marshall, a quarterback in the 2030 recruiting class, won’t be a high schooler for another few months, but he’s already receiving hype from the NFL’s official social media accounts.
The NFL’s official Twitter/X.com account tweeted a side-by-side video this week of Marshall and Peyton, highlighting the remarkable similarities between the two.
It was inevitable that Marshall was going to get hyped simply because of his last name. I thought the hype, however, would wait until he had actually started a high school football game.
For the last six months to a year, Marshall Manning has been a player who has mostly just been on the radar of die-hard college football fans (mostly Tennessee fans). But that’s no longer the case — the secret is out, which means the hype is only going to grow from here.
Is the early hype for Marshall Manning fair?
Marshall obviously has unlimited potential as a quarterback. He’s got the genetics, he has incredible mentors in his parents, his uncles, his grandfather, and his cousin (Arch Manning), and he has all the resources a young player could ever dream of having.
But that’s only part of the battle.
Marshall, like any young quarterback, is still growing as a player. He’s going to go through adversity (a necessary part of the growing process). He’s going to have bad days and tough moments. No athlete is immune from those things.
But will Marshall receive the grace that other young athletes get when going through adversity? Or will every throw he makes from the time he’s a high school freshman get overanalyzed and picked apart?
Unfortunately, I have a feeling it’ll be the latter. And that’s not fair to Marshall — he didn’t ask for the hype that comes with his last name.
Marshall Manning deserves the same freedom to grow as a player that relatively anonymous young quarterbacks get, but I seriously doubt he’ll get it.