Taylor Heinicke stepped into the NFL spotlight when he started at QB for the Washington Football Team in their Wild Card Round matchup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Although he wasn’t quite able to pull out the victory, he put together an admirable performance in defeat.
And while he likely won’t overtake Ryan Fitzpatrick for Washington’s starting job next season, it’s a known fact that reliable backup quarterbacks are worth their weight in gold in the NFL.
Taylor Heinicke faced impossible odds against Tampa Bay
Last season’s Wild Card tilt was a milestone in Heinicke’s career in many ways. It was only his second start at the professional level and his first in a game that actually mattered.
Heinicke faced a tough test against a Buccaneers defense that ultimately shut down Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl. He responded by throwing for 306 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception.
Washington might have lost in the end, but Heinicke’s performance was far better than anyone could have expected given the circumstances.
Heinicke had excellent advanced metrics against the Buccaneers
It wasn’t just Heinicke’s box statistics that exceeded expectations in the Wild Card Round — he also earned solid advanced metrics.
As evidence, let’s take a look at the Offensive Value Metric (OVM). The OVM is a grading system created by the (Bx) Movement to evaluate players based on how much they contributed to the success of their offense.
Against the Buccaneers, Heinicke earned an OVM grade of 30.43. Of the twelve quarterbacks to play during Wild Card Weekend, that grade ranked fourth.
In other words, despite his lack of playing time and being thrust into the Washington offense on short notice, Heinicke was more effective in the 2020 Wild Card Round than many of the NFL’s best quarterbacks.
Examining the advanced metrics behind Heinicke’s grades
To understand the grade Heinicke earned in the Wild Card Round, we need to look at the advanced metrics involved in calculating a quarterback’s OVM grades.
One of the major factors working in Heinicke’s favor was the difficulty of the passes he attempted. He threw the ball an average of 9.6 yards downfield across all of his pass attempts and 8.4 yards on his completions. He also threw into tight windows on 20.5% of his pass attempts.
And yet, despite the challenging nature of Heinicke’s attempted passes, his completion statistics were better than you might expect.
On the surface, that might not seem to be true. After all, his completion percentage of 59.1% is unimpressive, to say the least. However, the NFL’s projections suggest that Heinicke’s completion percentage should have been just 57.7%.
In other words, the Buccaneers’ defense made life extremely difficult for Heinicke, but he still completed 1.4% more of his passes than he should have.
A solid backup QB for Washington next season
Even with the skill he showed during last season’s Wild Card contest, I wouldn’t bet on Heinicke taking over the starting QB role in Washington any time soon.
Ryan Fitzpatrick gives Washington hope of making noise in the playoffs and has consistently been one of the NFL’s most effective quarterbacks throughout his career. In fact, he earned the best grade among all quarterbacks in 2020 (32.72).
He’s shown more than enough in the last few seasons to earn the starting role in Washington next season. However, Washington should feel confident that Heinicke can be a solid backup if Fitzpatrick were to falter, as he has done on more than a few occasions.
Lucas Ellinas is a writer for Pro Football Network. You can follow him on Twitter @Lucas_Ellinas.