00:00And then, of course, we have Taylor Heineke, who retired from the NFL yesterday, and he put out a statement.
00:07For 25 years, I had the pleasure to play this great sport of football.
00:11It has taught me a lot, not only about myself, but about my life as well.
00:16Many ups and downs throughout the years, but the ups outweigh the downs tenfold.
00:21Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would have been able to live this life.
00:26Thank you to all who have supported me in this journey.
00:29Thank you all who have believed in me.
00:32And thank you to those who gave me the opportunity to live out my childhood dream.
00:38And one big thanks to Sabah from the Carolinas.
00:43Dr. Sabah, thank you for your support.
00:48Excited for this chapter of my life.
00:51And always, go Skins.
00:54He did not actually thank Sabah, but he should.
00:57And he should thank a lot of people.
00:59He had quite, quite the resurrection and then quite the run.
01:05I mean, it's a great story.
01:07I love the way, by the way, at the very end.
01:09And always, go Skins.
01:11Nice job, Taylor.
01:13Appreciate that.
01:16Look, no need to eulogize Taylor Heineke.
01:19He's alive and well.
01:20And he's only 32 years old.
01:22And I'm sure he's very healthy.
01:23And by the way, he's very, very smart.
01:26He will have quite the life and maybe even a bigger and better opportunity after this run as an NFL
01:34quarterback where his visibility personally obviously increased.
01:38But he is, you know, quite a financial and math capable person.
01:46I'm sure he will go into the financial sector, I'm guessing.
01:49And I bet he will be very successful.
01:51Because the thing that you can say about Taylor Heineke more than anything else is that he believes in himself
02:00and he's fearless.
02:02Fearless.
02:03Because he's not a starting quarterback and was never a starting quarterback in the NFL talent-wise.
02:09I think most people thought that.
02:11But I think a lot of people, I think a lot of our fans thought he was actually going to
02:16be the answer.
02:17You know, like you could build a team around Taylor Heineke and win a lot of games.
02:23I never thought that, which is why Sabah is taking a shot at me or took a shot at me
02:28very early this morning.
02:30I never felt that.
02:32But always appreciated and respected what he was.
02:36What he was was a total competitive gamer.
02:40I mean, and a guy that could really, really play with zero fear and took risks and didn't mind taking
02:52risks.
02:53Because for him, what did he have to lose?
02:55You know who was the guy that really believed in him and gave him the opportunity was Scott Turner.
03:01Scott had been with him in Carolina in 2018 with his dad.
03:05And he really liked Taylor Heineke.
03:07And when they ran into the quarterback problems in 2020, he's the one that brought Taylor Heineke in.
03:14He's the one that convinced Ron Rivera and anybody else, the Marty Party, to bring Taylor Heineke in.
03:20And we know what happened.
03:23He had that opportunity on a Saturday night in January of 2021
03:29to play in a playoff game in front of no fans against Tom Brady in the New England Patriots.
03:36I'm sorry, in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
03:38The Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
03:40And he played the game of his life.
03:44The game of his life.
03:46Threw for 306 yards and a touchdown.
03:50Rushed for a touchdown.
03:51We'll never forget that play.
03:53That's the play that we came in with.
03:54And he kept them in that football game.
03:57Now, he needed, like, by the way, the quarterback that is currently playing
04:02and the quarterbacks that played last year, he needed some defense
04:06because they didn't have any defense in that game.
04:09They gave up over 500 yards of offense.
04:11Remember in that playoff game in 2021, January of 2021?
04:16Literally, the Patriots, the Patriots.
04:19Man, does anybody else do that with Brady?
04:20The Buccaneers rolled up, in that game, 507 yards of offense.
04:28And in that game, Chris Godwin had five dropped passes.
04:35They scored 31 points, rolling up 507 yards.
04:40And their second-best receiver dropped five passes in the game.
04:46Five.
04:47That is not an exaggeration.
04:49I'm looking at the actual box score.
04:52I remember five was the number of drops.
04:55He was targeted 12 times and had five catches in the game for 79 yards.
05:00Can you imagine if he just dropped three instead of five?
05:03It probably would have been another 50 or 60 yards of offense and more points.
05:06I never felt about that game, you know, the day after, in the moment, the day after, the months
05:14after, the years after, as certainly the, you know, the effort by Taylor Heineke and the team,
05:21I think, has been described in a way that wasn't necessarily accurate.
05:25Not about him.
05:26He was awesome in the game.
05:28And the offense was awesome in the game.
05:31He had 306 yards passing, 46 yards rushing.
05:36And they were, you know, incredible, you know, on third down in that game.
05:41I'm going to say that they were probably somewhere right around 40, 45% on third down.
05:47They were 50% on third down.
05:48Seven of 14 in that game.
05:50But that game never actually felt winnable because they couldn't get a stop.
05:57You know, they had that opportunity.
05:58They cut it to two at the end of the third quarter, 18 to 16.
06:03And you're like, oh, okay.
06:04Then it's, you know, 21, 16, 28, 16, 28.
06:08They just couldn't get a stop.
06:10Kind of the way, you know, we felt about the Philadelphia NFC title game.
06:15But Taylor Heineke in that game was awesome.
06:19And that was really, without question, his best football game.
06:23I thought he did a really good job as sort of a game-managing quarterback in 2021.
06:30You know, they ran the ball during that stretch when they won four games in a row against Tampa again.
06:35They had Tampa at home and beat Brady and the Bucs that particular day.
06:41And then went on to win three other games.
06:42The Raiders were involved.
06:44Seattle was involved.
06:45I'm forgetting what the other one was.
06:47I'll pull it up here in a second.
06:49It was 2021.
06:52Carolina.
06:54He was excellent.
06:56Didn't hurt the team.
06:58Made the throws that you needed to make.
07:00They ran the football a lot during that stretch.
07:03They actually played pretty good defense during that stretch.
07:06And then COVID hit.
07:08The COVID absences hit.
07:10COVID had already hit.
07:11But all those absences hit.
07:13And they were without key players.
07:15And he didn't play well either down the stretch.
07:18But they were missing players.
07:19It wasn't necessarily his fault.
07:21Remember the Dron Payne, John Allen blow up on the sideline in that Dallas game.
07:25And they ended up losing.
07:26But that football team.
07:28And I've had Scott Turner on the show a few times.
07:30And he's talked about that 2021 run.
07:32He's like, we were playing good football.
07:34Like, we knew what Taylor's limits were.
07:38And we were coaching and calling around those things.
07:42And we were running the football.
07:43Antonio Gibson was good.
07:45McKissick was good.
07:47And then remember in 2022, look, this was a football team at the end of the year that at one
07:55point was two games above .500 in December.
07:59But they had those big games against the Giants.
08:03And they were not great games for the team and for the offense in particular.
08:09Taylor, they ended up tying the Giants at the Meadowlands.
08:13They ended up losing on that Sunday night at home.
08:16They needed that game against the Giants.
08:18Of course, there was a controversial ending.
08:20There was certainly some interference in the end zone on that fourth down throw.
08:25And then they got blown out at San Francisco.
08:27And Taylor did not play well in that game.
08:29Turned it over a few times.
08:32And they went to Carson Wentz for that final game against Cleveland.
08:36And one of the things we've learned about that particular moment is the team preferred Taylor Heineke.
08:43Much preferred Taylor Heineke.
08:47That's who they wanted to play that game.
08:51And he didn't.
08:53And Carson Wentz played the game and they ended up losing and being eliminated from the postseason.
08:58And then we know what happened that final week of 2022 when the story goes that Taylor Heineke was going
09:09to start that game.
09:10But he actually recommended to Ron Rivera that Sam Howell get the opportunity to start that game.
09:18And, of course, Sam Howell came in and threw for a whopping 169 yards.
09:24And he was ordained as the next reverend at quarterback for the next year.
09:32Those were wild quarterback days.
09:34I mean, we were in the wilderness.
09:35But he was an absolute competitive gaming, you know, bright light during those years.
09:42I just never really thought, and I think most of you probably felt the same way, but I know a
09:49lot of you didn't.
09:50I just never thought he was, I never really wanted to invest in Taylor Heineke as the starting quarterback for
09:56the future.
09:58Great and very effective backup quarterback in the NFL.
10:03Super, super happy for him that he got that opportunity.
10:06And I think it probably, it's not that he wasn't going to do well professionally post career, post his college
10:14football career and the limited NFL career he had.
10:16But no one had heard of Taylor Heineke prior to coming to Washington.
10:20And that one season and that one playoff game certainly elevated his overall, you know, awareness and profile.
10:30Good job here.
10:31And I know a lot of people really enjoyed some of those games in some of those days.
10:37But it really goes to show you just how hungry we were as a fan base for anything, anything that
10:45gave you a chance to at least be competitive.
10:50And, yeah, I don't, you know, remember Alex Smith quarterbacked that game at the end of 2020 to get him
10:58into the postseason to win the division at 7-9 in Philadelphia.
11:00Where the Eagles literally tanked in the second half, pulling starters in the fourth quarter, pulling Jalen Hurts, putting in
11:09Nate Sudfeld in the fourth quarter to ensure that they didn't lose ground from a draft standpoint.
11:15Washington won that game.
11:17And Alex Smith basically was, you know, he limped to the finish and probably shouldn't have played that game and
11:24then was ruled out of that playoff game the following Saturday night.
11:28But Taylor Heineke, he will, he will be, guys like him are the guys that end up being wildly successful.
11:36Not going to surprise me to look up 10 years from now and see him running a company or running
11:41a hedge fund or being very, very successful in whatever he does.
11:46Who knows?
11:46Maybe he'll end up being a media person.
11:50I don't think that that's his calling, but maybe it is.
Comments