How to draft the next Peyton Manning?

How much of a role did intelligence and dedication play in Peyton Manning’s NFL success?

Peyton Manning had a great number of things going for him as a football player. His father was an NFL quarterback, so he had an NFL bloodline. Not only was his father an NFL QB, but Archie was the second overall pick in 1971 behind two-time Super Bowl winning QB Jim Plunkett.

Along with his bloodline Peyton Manning was driven to succeed and prepared/studied with a fierceness and dedication rarely seen in any profession. He usually knew what the defense was going to do before the opposing defensive coordinator called it. His preparation paired with his intelligence and his accuracy made him one of the best, if not the best, quarterback to ever play the game.

One way we know that he was/is extremely intelligent is that he won the William Campbell trophy, AKA the “Academic Heisman”. The Campbell trophy has only been given out since 1990. The table below shows the players who have won it. The include some very successful NFL players as well as players who never sniffed the NFL.

Of course intelligence as a QB doesn’t guarantee NFL success, or Tim Tebow would still be playing in the NFL. I imagine Danny Weurrfel and Bobby Hoying would have had more NFL success also if that were the case. So how do the Broncos find a QB with the same bloodlines, intelligence and drive that Peyton Manning has?

Before we get into that, I should note that Justin Herbert and Chad Pennington also won this award and had some success in the NFL as QBs as you will see below. Unlike the actual Heisman, the Campbell award can go to non-QBs, and I can say with pride that a number of centers have won the award (I played center at the FCS level).

Bloodlines

Bo Nix has a father that played QB at Auburn for four seasons in the 1990s. While he didn’t have the same level of success that Archie Manning had at Mississippi, he was the Tigers starting QB for the 1994 and 1995 and finished his career with a very respectable (for the time) 31 TD passes and only 16 interceptions. Patrick Nix, went into coaching after that, and Bo has grown up around football his whole life. I don’t know if the other QBs in this draft have bloodlines like that, but we at least know that Bo has an NFL bloodline.

Preparation/Drive

According to Nix’ head coach at Oregon, Bo is like a coach on the field.

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning: “He sits in the coaches meetings and operates at a completely different level than anyone I’ve ever been around.”

That sounds to me like Peyton Manning who was a player that wouldn’t throw to a receiver unless he knew that he was going to run the correct pattern and be at the correct spot. That’s one of the reasons that Cody Latimer was such a failure in the NFL. He runs terrible routes despite having oodles of physical talent. He was/is a receiver that was never going to be successful with a precise and demanding QB like Manning.

Nix preparation/drive showed in his play as he set the single season completion percentage record in the BCS at 77.4%. He also threw 45 touchdowns with only three interceptions during his final college football season. That 15:1 TD:INT ratio is also one of the best in college football history. The passing offense that he led at Oregon over the last two seasons was one of the best in college football history.

Below is Passing TDs divided by interceptions plus sacks/2 then adjust by a constant to get numbers greater than 1. The average college team ends up with a value in the mid 30s. Oregon in 2022 and 2023 had values of 126 and 75 – meaning that they threw a bunch of TDs without throwing picks OR giving up sacks.

Manning (who played in a different era) finished his college career with 89 TD passes and 33 INTs. In the one season where he was All-American (1997) and won the SEC POY, Manning threw for 36 TDs and only had 11 picks.

Another thing that Manning had in spades with heart/desire and love for the game of football. Bo Nix shares this trait with Peyton.

Another quote from Dan Lenning

“You want guys on your team that want to play for love of the game, and Bo Nix is one of those guys.”

Intelligence

The player who won the academic Heisman for the 2023 season is Bo Nix. Obviously this does not mean he will be a successful NFL QB any more than winning the football Heisman does. Honestly there are many more winners of the football Heisman who have been bad NFL QBs than there are winners of the academic Heisman who have done so, but let’s focus on those QBs who have won the Campbell award.

Bobby Hoying who played for Ohio State, had a short career in the NFL as a starting QB starting 13 games over four seasons in the NFL. Danny Weurffel started 10 games in the NFL over six seasons, but never more than four games in a season. We know what Manning did.

Chad Pennington was a first round pick of the Jets in 2000 and spent eleven injury-riddled seasons in the NFL starting 81 games. He was a victim of a poor team around him and his inability to stay healthy otherwise he might have had a career similar to Peyton Manning.

Craig Krenzel is another Ohio State QB who lasted only one season in the NFL starting five games for the Bears. Tim Tebow was an enigma wrapped in a riddle encased in a mystery that the Broncos stupidly drafted in the first round.

Justin Herbert, another Duck, has been a very good NFL QB so far, but he is cursed by playing in the same division as the man who is currently the best QB in the NFL, Kermit the QB (aka Patrick Mahomes).

Brady White played QB at Memphis and Arizona St. and who has never appeared on an NFL roster.

As you can see, a QB winning the Campbell award is not a great indicator of NFL success, but couple with other things it is a piece of data that can shed some light on the kind of player that a QB might be in the NFL.

Conclusions

Peyton Manning and Bo Nix share plenty of similarities off the field – intelligence, preparation and bloodlines – and on the field – accuracy, pocket awareness and ability to read defenses. Does that mean that Nix is the next Peyton Manning? I have no idea and if I did, I wouldn’t be telling you; I would be selling that information to the NFL team that was the highest bidder. That being said, I would like to the see the Broncos drafting Bo Nix because I see plenty of similarities between him and PFM. If there is even a small chance that he is the next Peyton Manning (assuming there will even be ANOTHER one), then it is worth it for the Broncos to use the 12th pick on him.