Washington Football Team: How Taylor Heinicke compares to Kurt Warner, Matt Flynn

Heinicke has upside, but Washington is being smart at QB

At this point, it’s impossible to say whether Heinicke compares more to Warner and Flynn. They represent the two ends of the spectrum that Heinicke could fall on, but because of the lacking sample size, Heinicke is just an upside-based quarterback option.

That said, Washington was obviously smart to keep him. Heinicke clearly knows Scott Turner’s system well and fits into it extremely well, too. He’s great to have in the QB room from a competition perspective and given what he was able to do when thrown into action unexpectedly late in the year, the team can absolutely trust him as a depth option, bare minimum.

Heinicke’s upside is still high. He’s not yet 30, so he could break out if everything clicks for him. That’s what happened for Warner, and though Heinicke hasn’t had the same higher-level success that Warner had in the AFL and NFL Europe, he still has been with numerous NFL teams and surely has picked up skills along the way.

At the same time, Washington was smart not to completely overreact to Heinicke’s strong performance against the Buccaneers. They didn’t overpay to keep him. They paid him at a backup level with incentives that could give him extra money if he does emerge as the starter.

This move doesn’t even qualify as a risk. If Heinicke regresses completely — which is unlikely but possible — Washington could move on from him easily or try to stash him on the practice squad. That qualifies as the worst-case scenario, but because Washington didn’t even pay him at a Flynn-type level, the money won’t be a problem regardless of his performance.

Soon enough, we’ll see how Heinicke factors into the Washington Football Team’s quarterback room. But no matter what happens, there are blueprints for how Heinicke can find success and avoid a plateau heading into 2021. Hopefully, he can follow the Warner one and continue his unexpected rise.

But even if he plateaus in the way that Flynn did, Washington will be okay — provided that they can add one more starter-candidate to their quarterback room.