Is Arch Manning the Rams succession plan at quarterback?

Reports of LA’s interest in the Texas QB have heated up recently

Arch Manning has become a polarizing name in football as he gets closer to finishing his college career and declaring for the NFL, and it looks as though the Los Angeles Rams may have some interest in trying to make a move for the Texas QB if he were to come out in next year’s draft. The grandson of Archie Manning and nephew of NFL Hall of Famer Peyton Manning has yet to play an entire NCAA season as a starting quarterback but his family pedigree and potential has some teams drooling for his services already.

According to NFL personality Dov Kleiman on X.com, The Rams see Manning as the only clear cut QB1 in next year’s draft, and view him as a succession plan for current quarterback Matthew Stafford. He added that LA would pursue Manning if he were to come out early next offseason even if Stafford decided to play in 2026.

The idea of Manning paired with offensive guru Sean McVay seems like a match made in heaven. McVay has never hand picked a starting caliber quarterback in the draft, inheriting former first round pick Jared Goff and trading for Matthew Stafford after a long stint with the Detroit Lions.

This report comes on the heels of Stafford starting training camp this week on the sidelines, however McVay reiterated that starting the QB slow was always part of the plan.

“He was working with the training staff,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said Wednesday. “To be out here on his feet — could he be out here? Yeah, but what’s more beneficial for him? I probably should have been a little bit more specific as to [what] working on the side [meant] — maybe working in the tents, things like that. So that was according to plan. I kind of misspoke [Tuesday] as far as ‘working out onto the side.’”

“This isn’t anything new,” McVay told Yahoo Sports. “It’s just one of those things that at the early parts of camp we were going to monitor and restrict his workload anyway — really for the mental and physical aspects of it. That made it easy to say, ‘F*** that, the first five-day acclimation period we’re not even in pads, it’s not even real football right now.’ It’s the right thing to do for him, No. 1, and for our team.”

No matter how much McVay and the Rams are happy to have Stafford this year, it’s clear they view him as a QB that’s in the twilight of his career, especially after a contract dispute that lead to Stafford being given permission to speak to other teams this summer. In the end the two sides were able to work out a deal, and to be clear this is probably the best situation for both the team and player to have the most success in 2025, but both have also made it known that Stafford’s contract situation will most-likely be a year-to-year evaluation going forward.

Insert Manning, who is tied to the Rams for a very obvious reason – Les Snead’s stepson Tate is known to be a close friend of Manning, and Snead himself chatted him up at the Texas pro day prior to the 2025 NFL Draft.

Manning would probably be the consensus number one pick if he were to leave college after his junior year and declare for the 2026 NFL Draft. If Los Angeles has the success they are expected to this season, it could make the cost of getting high enough up in the draft to get Manning astronomical.

In the team’s defense, they do have some draft capital to make a move if needed, acquiring a second first round pick in next year’s draft from the Atlanta Falcons after trading back with them in April. If the Rams were to use both 2026 first round picks, and potentially offer up Stafford as well (who is technically still under contract with the team in 2026), they may have just enough to entice the team that owns first overall at that time.

There’s also a scenario where the Rams land Manning and still keep Stafford too. As stated earlier, Yahoo Sports is reporting that a high-ranking Rams said even if Stafford returns to the team in 2026, the Rams would — at this point — still lean into drafting Manning and then put him on ice for his rookie season, similar to the Kansas City Chiefs keeping Patrick Mahomes on the bench behind Alex Smith in 2017.

They then added that the franchise believes Stafford would be open to such a scenario, knowing that 2026 will almost certainly be his last season in the NFL, regardless of what transpires during the course of the regular season and playoffs.

This would obviously be the best of both worlds, as you would still have a great veteran quarterback in Stafford to keep up a high level of QB play while the team is in a Super Bowl window, while planning for the future with Manning on a rookie deal so you can take care of contract extensions for some of the young star players like Jared Verse, Puka Nacua and Braden Fiske.

Stafford will be the quarterback in 2025 no matter what, and that’s great because at the end of the day he’s still Super Bowl champion Matthew Stafford with a cannon. However, loving Staffy does not mean you can’t still be excited at the possibility of a future where Arch Manning lands on the roster too, even if it’s in a replacement type situation. It seems like that’s exactly how the team feels about it as well.