Tom Brady thinks the media needs to back off Arch Manning.
The Fox analyst and former Patriots and Buccaneers quarterback told Sports Illustrated that young athletes like Manning don’t get the development time previous generations had, and the constant scrutiny threatens to break their confidence before they ever get a real chance.
“Before, [players] had the kind of ability to fail when people weren’t watching, to build that resiliency within themselves,” Brady said in a recent interview with SI‘s Elizabeth Swinton. “So I think it’s a real challenge these days for these young kids because Arch Manning, you know, seems like a great kid and great player.”
Brady pointed to Manning’s uncles as examples of quarterbacks who got years to develop without cameras tracking their every grimace. Peyton and Eli Manning both had time to figure things out. Brady had the same luxury. Manning doesn’t.
“Peyton had a lot of years to develop,” Brady continued. “Eli had a lot of years to develop and, you know, I was a college kid once, too, and I wasn’t the best quarterback at that time. And how people remember me after my pro career was a lot different than I remember me after my college career, which is a lot different than me how they remember me after my high school year. So give people a chance to learn and grow and develop and put them in the right situation.”
Brady’s right about the media environment changing, and Manning’s situation shows exactly how warped it’s become. The Texas quarterback entered 2025 as the Heisman favorite and projected No. 1 pick. Paul Finebaum called him “the best player we have seen from every aspect since Tim Tebow” before Manning had even started a game. The Wall Street Journal declared him “the biggest college quarterback prospect ever.”
Then, Manning struggled in his first road game against Ohio State, and the same media that built him up spent weeks tearing him down.
Manning never asked to be the next Tim Tebow. He didn’t demand Heisman hype as a redshirt sophomore making his first career start. The media created those expectations, failed to meet them after one bad game, and then blamed Manning for not living up to standards that were never realistic in the first place.
“It’s just a very interesting media environment with the negativity associated with people,” Brady said. “And I’d love to see some of these young players not have their confidence broken, you know, because they’re not their uncle… as a 17- or 18-year-old kid.”
Brady’s been in the booth for over a year now, calling games for Fox while also serving as a minority owner of the Raiders. He’s seen how the NFL media ecosystem works from the inside. He’s also come under fire for refusing to go after NFL players in the booth, so his defending a college quarterback from media scrutiny aligns with how he sees the analyst role.
The truth is that Manning is making his first season as a starter. He backed up Quinn Ewers for two years and played well in limited action. Texas is 5-2 through seven games. But because his name is Manning and because Finebaum and others decided he needed to be the story before the season started, every incompletion becomes evidence of some deeper failure.
Manning isn’t Peyton or Eli yet. He’s a college quarterback trying to figure out the position while the entire sports media apparatus watches his every move and debates whether he’s mentally broken. Maybe the solution is exactly what Brady suggested: give him time to develop without declaring him either the next great quarterback or a complete bust after five games.
Whether the media actually listens is another question entirely.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.