Taylor Heinicke had been here before.
It was Christmas Day of 2017 and after an injury to starting quarterback T.J. Yates, Heinicke was coming out of the halftime locker room with his first opportunity to get a real chance at NFL playing time with the Houston Texans – 32 yards and nine snaps later, Heinicke was being sacked by Steelers cornerback Mike Hilton, hard enough to be knocked out of the game – those nine snaps would be the majority of his NFL career, save for the occasional mop-up or Hail Mary duty. Fast forward 363 days later and Heinicke was making his first start, now in relief of Cam Newton – this time he made it halfway through the second quarter before a Grady Jarrett sack had Heinicke writhing on the ground in pain.
“It was like déjà vu from last year,” said Heinicke. “Christmas Day, Houston throws me in there and I’m moving the ball and then I’m out. I wasn’t going to let that happen again – I waited too long. I worked too hard.”
“Obviously, I want to be out there for those guys. Those guys are awesome and they believe in me. I wanted to give my all for them.
Heinicke fought off emotions as he spoke to the media post-game after receiving more than 30 minutes worth of treatment on his left elbow – an injury that he declined to elaborate on, only saying that he’d save that for another day; but it was very obvious that he was playing in tremendous amounts of pain, even as he continuously confirmed to Ron Rivera that he wanted to keep returning to the game.
“It might sound crazy, but it makes you want to play harder – you might take a shot or something, but you look at some of these shots that Taylor is taking or that Cam is taking and it’s like it ain’t nothing compared to what those guys take, so it just pushes you to play harder,” said Jarius Wright, who had seven catches for 69 yards as well as a fumble deep in Panthers’ territory. “He makes a throw, he gets back up – he’s not the biggest guy in the world, [but] he gets back up and he’s right back at you. He’s scrambling down the field with one arm.”
“How many guys are even going to run that ball with one arm? That says a lot about the guy.”
That was the overwhelming sentiment throughout the Panthers locker room after a disappointing 24-10 loss – they may not have won the game, but Heinicke gained the respect of his teammates, not only for his toughness – of which he had in spades as he gutted through eight quarterback hits, many of them coming with the large brace and wrap on Heinicke’s non-throwing arm – but for his attitude as he tried desperately to rally the Panthers back as he threw the ball 53 times, the third-highest number of pass attempts in Panthers franchise history.
If Heinicke is not able to go next week, the Panthers got a quick look at undrafted free agent rookie Kyle Allen, who completed every pass attempt in limited snaps and drove the Panthers inside the red zone before Heinicke returned – although there’s one thing Allen has left to learn.
How the headsets work.
“One thing he doesn’t have to do is he doesn’t have to walk to the sidelines to get the signals from the coaches because he has the headset on so he could stay closer to the huddle,” said Rivera. “They would give him the play call and he would have to walk all the way to the huddle and it would take about four or five seconds.”
“You could see a little bit of the rookieness in him.”
But the day ultimately belonged to Heinicke.
With his teammates, including an inactive Cam Newton, wearing custom shirts emblazoned with a Heineken beer bottle that read his last name across the label, Heinicke drove the team down the field on their longest drive in terms of both number of plays (14) and time of possession (8:03) and threw the first touchdown in both his and rookie tight end Ian Thomas’ careers; he’ll be letting Thomas keep that ball in the hopes that Heinicke has more touchdowns on his horizon.
The Panthers, in a touching gesture, released a picture on social media of an empty seat with a shirt draped over it and the caption “Got a seat and a shirt saved for you today, Brett Heinicke,” to honor Heinicke’s father, whom the quarterback was incredibly close to and lost suddenly during his freshman year at Old Dominion. Heinicke spoke emotionally this week about what his father meant to him and how he had molded him into the man he was today – the man who gutted his way to the third-most completions in Panthers franchise history with one arm.
“If he was here right now, he would be trying to get [into the press conference] right now and tell me how proud he is of me,” said Heinicke as he fought off his emotions again. “That’s all I need.”
“I know he was watching. It was a special day.”
