There are, at any given time, 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL. There are literally 32 people on the planet that can say that about themselves in a single instance, and that's it. Taylor Heinicke is one of them, as he has started the last seven games for the Washington Football Team and aims to do so for the foreseeable future.
What separates Heinicke from the other 31? Just a year ago, he had nearly accepted the fact that he would not, in fact, be an NFL starting quarterback — or an NFL quarterback at all. You couldn't ask for a more perfect guest, then, on Duncan Robinson's "The Long Shot" podcast from ThreeFourTwo Productions and Cadence13 than Heinicke himself. "Celebrating success that is unexpected" kicks off our shows description, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more unexpected starting QB in the league right now than the man at the helm of the WFT offense.
What was Heinicke doing about a year ago today? Taking classes online — though simultaneously making sure he stayed active.
"I was training every day. I like working out, I like doing all that stuff, staying active. So I was walking 5-10 miles a day and lifting and training some kids on the field and I just enjoyed it. But deep down in my mind, I thought I was done with football," Heinicke told Robinson and co-host Davis Reid. "But again, I was really proud of myself because I kept on going to the field and training these high school and JUCO kids and I would throw with them. And I would remember all the things I'd learned throughout the years and train them at it and I kept practicing it, so I got better through those months I wasn't playing.
"But I will say, deep down, I thought I was completely done and I was going to have to find a new chapter of my life. So for what's going on right now, it's a blessing."
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Want an unorthodox way to take a study break? Get called up as an NFL team's emergency COVID quarterback — but that's exactly the study break that Heinicke got.
"...Last year, the Denver Broncos, all their quarterbacks got COVID and they had a receiver play quarterback," Heinicke said. "Well, Washington at the time was like, 'yeah, we can't have that,' so they called me up to be the emergency COVID quarterback. So I'm at meetings, I'm like 30 feet behind everybody, I'm nowhere near everyone. At practice, I'm like 10 yards away from everyone, not getting any reps, and then a couple things happened here and there and I'm playing Tom Brady in the playoffs. So it's been a wild ride."
It didn't take long after the game — a loss to the Bucs, but a much closer game than anyone would've expected against the eventual Super Bowl champions — for Heinicke to realize just how much of a whirlwind he'd been through.
"I probably had that moment right after the game. I was hurting there for a little bit, I separated my shoulder that game, they gave me a couple pills," Heinicke said. "I was feeling pretty good at home and kind of looking back at everything that just happened and I'm thinking, you know, this just changed my life.
"I'll probably be in the league for another two-plus years and to just kind of think back to where I was just a couple months prior, I would never have thought that would happen."
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