Arch Manning’s NFL Draft future has a huge issue no one has brought up yet

Arch Manning is the betting favorite to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

The Texas QB has been suggested by some that he'll actually stay in school until the 2027 draft.

But there's a timeline issue even greater than that which very few people have mentioned yet.

Manning has three years of college eligibility remaining. If he wants, he can play Division I football until the 2028 NFL Draft.

ESPN's Matt Miller is the first notable analyst to mention this, doing so in a social media post earlier this week. He went so far as to write that he won't be doing any draft work on Arch for 2026.

The reason this feels so relevant particularly in the Manning family is that Arch's uncles, Peyton and Eli, had similar options at play.

In the end, both exhausted their eligibility before heading to the NFL.

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Both Manning uncles were No. 1 overall picks, too.

Arch's talent plus name brand makes him the favorite to go first in whatever draft he actually comes out in.

Just don't bet on it being 2026. It wouldn't fit with the way the Mannings do things.

They were content for Arch to sit and wait his turn behind Quinn Ewers. They didn't stir the pot or pursue a transfer.

Who's to say now that Arch won't just hang in college for as long as he can before coming to the pressure cooker (and potentially awful team) that he'd get in the NFL?

We might be talking about these possibilities for the next few years.

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