{"id":357603,"date":"2025-09-10T19:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T19:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/357603\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T19:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T19:30:11","slug":"mel-kiper-makes-definitive-statement-on-arch-mannings-place-in-2026-nfl-draft-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/357603\/","title":{"rendered":"Mel Kiper makes definitive statement on Arch Manning’s place in 2026 NFL Draft class"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mel Kiper Jr.\u2018s Big Board ranking of the upcoming NFL Draft class is an annual must-read for all NFL fans and draftniks. But when ESPN\u2019s longtime draft prognosticator ultimately releases his list of the top prospects in the 2026 NFL Draft later this year, one prominent name will be noticably absent: Texasj junior quarterback Arch Manning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kiper announced Wednesday on ESPN\u2019s First Draft that he has no intention of including Manning, the much-ballyhooed nephew of former superstar NFL quarterbacks Eli<\/a> and Peyton Manning<\/a>, on any of his 2026 draft rankings. Kiper also advised the first-year Longhorns starter to forgo next year\u2019s draft and return to Austin for the 2026 college football season. Manning hasn\u2019t necessarily impressed in his first two starts as Texas\u2019 QB1 despite entering the 2025 college football season as the betting favorite to win the 2025 Heisman Trophy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not (recommending him) coming out after one season. History tells us you shouldn\u2019t. I\u2019d want (him) to go through a year where he\u2019s the guy, and you see that alpha, you see the guy (have) a command of the offense, (he\u2019s) got a command of college football,\u201d Kiper said Wednesday on ESPN2 \u201c\u2026 He\u2019s (still) trying to figure it out, and if you\u2019re tying to figure out college, you\u2019re not going to the NFL in April. Forget about it. He\u2019s back at Texas for Year 2 (as a starter) next season. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not going to be on any of my big boards, he\u2019s not going to be on any of my Top 10 positional analysis coming out. On my rankings, he will not appear. Now if he decides in January to come out, I\u2019ll put him in then. But he\u2019s not going to be on my Big Board, he needs to go back for 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

This report will be updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mel Kiper Jr.\u2018s Big Board ranking of the upcoming NFL Draft class is an annual must-read for all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5242,7,6,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-357603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-draft","8":"tag-arch-manning-23-isidore-newman","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nfl-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115181664670628854","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}