NFL free agency hasn’t started yet and the NFL Draft is still a few weeks away, but ESPN prognosticator Stephen A. Smith has seen enough and is ready to make a projection: Taylor Heinicke will be the Washington Football Team starting quarterback on Week 1 of the 2021 season.
“It's gonna be Taylor Heinicke,” Smith said on “First Take” this week, declaring he will beat out Alex Smith, the only other passer the team currently has under contract.
“Now I understand that feel-good story that Alex Smith has out there. I really, really do. And I was very happy for him. I was very impressed by him and the comeback player, I mean, it was a phenomenal story no question about it,” Stephen A. said. “But if you watched this kid Taylor Heinicke perform in the postseason against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when he was just thrusted on center stage, he didn't look too shabby. Not at all.”
During his postseason debut – and first start of the season for Washington – Heinicke had several ‘Wow!’ plays and threw for 306 yards and ran for 46 more in a 31-23 defeat.
The performance earned the 27-year-old Heinicke a contract extension, which Stephen A. believes indicates Washington’s intent to play him.
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“I think they’re gonna give him a chance, I don’t think it’s an accident that they signed him to a two-year contract extension,” he said. "This is a dude; he's got some scrambling ability, he's shown some moxie, some courage. He goes out there, the moment didn't appear to be too big for him.
"I think all of those things play a role where [Heinicke's] going to have an opportunity to start opening Week 1. I really, really believe that he's going to have that shot."
“First Take” co-host Max Kellerman went in a very different direction, thinking Washington may go after yet another player with ties to the Carolina Panthers.
“I’m very much looking at the NFL right now and thinking if there is a lot of movement, as Adam Schefter predicts, we’re gonna see some reunions,” Kellerman said. “I think Cam Newton’s gonna be available and Ron Rivera will come calling. I don’t think Heinicke is a starter.”
Of course, Newton, who had a second-straight subpar season and has battled numerous injuries to his shoulders is not at all the same player who won the MVP award under Rivera in Carolina.
“Maybe Cam is cooked. Maybe,” Kellerman said. “Maybe the shoulder [is gone], he’s not gonna come back, he’s taken too many hits. But he really is a guy who is coming off a catastrophic injury where he missed a full season. He went to a new team with a brand new situation, no offensive weapons, right?
"I thought Tom Brady was done based off the offensive weapons [in New England], people were right about that… Cam was surrounded by less, he had to learn the system and he got Covid and he couldn’t even practice. Still, they won seven games.”
“And as a stop-gap measure, a guy like Cam Newton who does bring competitiveness and – as Bill Belichick points out – leadership and a guy who Ron Rivera knows very well is likely to be available, come on the cheap, and could have a reunion with Rivera in Washington.”
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Former NFL center Jeff Saturday’s reaction to Kellerman: “Not a snowballs chance for Cam Newton. Ain’t no way, in my opinion, that that’s going that way.”
Saturday also put some cold water on Stephen A. Smith’s point and cautioned against being a prisoner of the moment.
“I think you get a mid-tier guy and continue to surround him with good players,” Saturday said, arguing the defense is good enough to not need a top talent at quarterback. “Heinicke would be a fun story and a fun watch [but] I think midway through the season you would begin to peel those layers away and really show him for what he is and I think that would be a difficult [way for Washington to] win as you progress through the season.”
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