Pro football Hall of Famer Peyton Manning personified the field-general style of quarterback. He read defenses, changed protections, and stood in the pocket, a clock ticking in his head telling him exactly how many seconds he had to throw the ball. When the time was right, he executed. His brother Eli, the two-time Super Bowl MVP, was similar—perhaps a little less perfect and probably a bit more lucky.
Neither was known for blazing speed as a dual-threat playmaker. NFL on FOX curated a video compilation of the best scrambles from Peyton Manning’s eighteen-year NFL career. It’s one minute long and contains five highlights, one of which was a trick play that succeeded precisely because the opposing team never expected Peyton Manning to run a quarterback keeper to the outside. For the Manning family quarterback dynasty, the formula has been simple: Precise, yes. Highly aware, for sure. Fast? LOL.
But then there is Arch Manning, the Texas Longhorns’ second-year quarterback. Nephew of Peyton and Eli, son of Cooper, grandson of the great Archie Manning—simply identifying the University of Texas at Austin’s prize recruit from a couple years back involves tracing his lineage like he’s a Viking. And while Arch has seen limited action in his college career, what we’ve seen so far makes it possible that the third generation of Manning family signal-callers may possess all of the family’s strengths and none of their weaknesses. Like, look at this:
According to sports data firm Reel Analytics, Manning reached a speed of 20.7 miles per hour during the 67-yard touchdown run that somehow stole the show from the Longhorns’ 56–7 domination of the University of Texasat San Antonio and from UT’s rising to number one in the Associated Press NCAA Football poll. Almost 21 miles per hour is very fast! To help understand how speedy the youngest Manning to play football on television really is, here are some things that Arch Manning is apparently faster than.
Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle in Week One of the NFL Season
The Miami Dolphins built their offense around speed, with the lightning-quick receivers Hill and Waddle providing twin threats capable of blowing the top off opposing defenses. While the NFL has yet to release its Next Gen Stats for week two, in the NFL’s first week, Hill and Waddle reached 20.27 and 20.31 miles per hour, respectively, as their top speeds on long receptions. That’s very fast! You couldn’t do it, especially not wearing pads. (Unless Houston Texans receiver Nico Collins happens to be reading this, in which case your top speed was nearly 22 miles per hour last week, and we’re sorry to have doubted you.) But in week one Arch Manning (Manning!) topped two of the most feared route-runners in the NFL.
A Motorized Scooter
The ubiquitous rental scooters offered by companies such as Bird and Lime litter the streets of many Texas cities (though not Houston, where they’re banned), but they serve the purpose of offering to pedestrians speedy mobility over relatively short distances. While riding one, your land speed increases to about 15 miles per hour, which is especially handy if you need to get from one side of a city’s downtown to another in sweltering, midday heat. And if you, scootering along at top speed, were to encounter a sprinting Arch Manning, you would be left in the dust.
A Pack of Huskies Running the Iditarod
One of the world’s great athletic competitions is the Iditarod, the Alaskan sled dog race that covers roughly a thousand miles of wintry terrain in the great north. It’s a stunning marvel of speed, competitive spirit, and the bond between human and animal. A team of dogs running the Iditarod tends to top out at around 13 miles per hour, which is remarkable for a pack of dogs pulling a sled through snow; if Arch Manning had to pull a sled, we expect it would slow him down too. But if he simply wanted to take off alongside a pack at the starting line, he could get out in front of the team. How long could he sustain that speed? You’re asking the wrong question. The right question is “how long can the huskies?” (The answer is not very long; most teams tend to settle in around 5 to 8 miles per hour for the running day.) Granted, the Iditarod is significantly longer than 67 yards, but for one shining moment, Arch could say he did it.
A Chicken
In Rocky II, the titular Rocky Balboa trains for speed and dexterity by attempting to chase and pick up a chicken. He can’t do it because chickens are too fast and shifty. (In 2015’s Creed, Michael B. Jordan’s title character does manage to grab one, causing Rocky to remark that the chickens must be getting slower.) A chicken’s top speed is around 9 miles per hour. As a matter of pure speed, Arch Manning could easily run past one of the birds; whether he possesses the instincts and agility to snatch one off the ground is another matter, but maybe he’s got those too? We don’t know his life.
Both of His Famous Uncles
We got into Peyton’s foot speed above (and if you’re a Peyton Manning loyalist, here’s a collection of his greatest passes to wash the bad taste out of your mouth), but the younger of Arch’s two uncles, Eli Manning, occasionally showed off some wheels. While the NFL didn’t have Next Gen Stats tracking top running speeds at the height of Eli’s career, the former New York Giants quarterback was—well, he wasn’t slow, as evinced by the way the Atlanta Falcons’ secondary closes in on him in the clip above. Meanwhile, his nephew left the defensive players of the UTSA Roadrunners looking like dodo birds on Saturday. Still, Arch should hold back on trash-talking his uncles until he has a couple of Super Bowl rings.
The Speed Limit on a Residential Street in The Woodlands
Last year, Montgomery County commissioners approved a proposal to lower the speed limit in The Woodlands, the tony north Houston suburb, to 20 miles per hour. “My job is to do whatever I can to make this community as safe as possible,” commissioner James Noack said at the time. That’s safe from cars and—if he got a full head of steam—from a runaway Arch Manning, who’d be breaking the law if he hit his top speed on a neighborhood street.
