ODU Football alum Taylor Heinecke announced his retirement from the NFL on Thursday, which, it’s notable that Heinecke ever had an NFL career to be able to retire from, when you think about it.
Now, don’t misunderstand, Heinecke was really good at ODU – passing for 14,959 yards and 132 TDs in his four seasons at the school, which transitioned from FCS to FBS during his college career.
But his name didn’t get called in the 2015 NFL Draft, not that anybody expected that it would.
Heinecke signed a camp contract with the Minnesota Vikings, eventually made the team as the third QB – and then started on the merry-go-round.
Heinecke spent time on the practice squads of the New England Patriots and Houston Texans, where he got into a playoff game in 2017 as the starter, TJ Yates, was being evaluated for a concussion.
Heinecke completed his only pass attempt, then had to leave after a big hit left him with a concussion.
He then signed with, and started a game for, the Carolina Panthers, in 2018, but was forced out of the lineup after suffering an elbow injury.
The lowlight was 2019, when he signed with the XFL, but didn’t actually get to work with the spring league, because it suspended operations due to the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020.
The Washington Football Team – remember that? – signed Heinecke literally off his sister’s couch later that year, moved up the depth chart from fourth string to starter for the playoff game with Tampa Bay, and had a good day in the 31-23 loss to the team that would go on to win the Super Bowl that year: 26-of-44 for 306 yards, a touchdown and an INT, 46 yards and a TD on the ground.
That bit of sizzle led Washington to sign Heinecke to a one-year, $4.75 million deal to back up Ryan Fitzpatrick in 2021.
Fitzpatrick went down with a hip injury in the opener, and Heinecke was 7-8 as the starter – his final numbers for 2021: 3,419 yards passing, 65.0 percent completion rate, 20 TDs, 15 INTs.
Washington signed former #2 overall pick Carson Wentz to be the QB1 for 2022, but Heineck again took over as the starter in Week 7, with Wentz sidelined by a finger injury, and led the team to a 5-3-1 record, before losing the starting job to Wentz in Week 17.
In the 2022 offseason, Heinecke signed a two-year, $14 million deal to be the backup for the Atlanta Falcons, though he only lasted one season before the Falcons re-did their QB room, signing Kirk Cousins and taking Michael Penix Jr. in the first round of the 2024 draft.
Atlanta traded Heinecke to the LA Chargers ahead of that 2024 draft, and he saw limited action there backing up Justin Herbert.
The Chargers released Heinecke at the end of training camp last summer, and he spent last fall waiting on a phone call from another team in need of an emergency backup that never came.
All told, Heinecke was 13-15-1 as a starter in the NFL, passing for 6,663 yards with a 62.5 percent completion rate, with 39 TDs and 28 INTs.
Not bad for a guy who was thisclose to being a one-camp-and-done coming out of college.
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Chris Graham
