I fear they are going down a dead end there.
IMHO they are headed towards at least 60 additional Super Hornets. Just last year they told Congress that they want to stop buying the Super Hornet because they are ready to move ahead with NGAD..have an office set up etc etc (which was the right thing to ask for IMO). Now they are publicly saying that they don't even know what the SH replacement actually looks like. It could be manned, or it could be unmanned. I suppose they may have ruled out optionally manned or perhaps just forgot to mention it as an option still on the table. Congress is likely to turn down their request, keep adding SH's until they figure out what they actually want.