If the Jets felt insulted when Peyton Manning opted to return to school rather than join their franchise as the No. 1 pick in the 1997 NFL Draft, imagine the slight it would be for a handful of quarterbacks to all make that same decision in 2026.
The tricky thing when sizing up the 2026 quarterback class is figuring out which quarterbacks actually will enter the draft because so many have remaining NCAA eligibility, too few college starts and the possibility of lucrative NIL deals.
Not everyone has a famous grandfather to declare their decision to stay in school before the struggles start — as Archie Manning did for his namesake (and Peyton’s nephew) Arch Manning at Texas.
“That family cares about him being a good NFL quarterback,” ESPN NFL Draft analyst Matt Miller told The Post. “What’s the rush?”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
