It was the fourth quarter and fourth-and-21, and after dodging the rush in Tampa Bay, Washington quarterback Taylor Heinicke set a pace in double coverage.
It was a prayer that could keep the miracle alive. The hope that if teammate Logan Thomas is one of the most unlikely NFL playoff games imaginable can be extended – Tom Brady and his six Super Bowl games play against Taylor Heinicke and she, well, one career starts before Saturday.
These are the things they make Disney movies out of – a traveler from Old Dominion, a 276-year-old with 126 tracks to his NFL name, a man who jumped through five franchises to drop just three times and three times to cut differently while you almost never play. He even spent a few weeks in the New England Patriots’ training group, apparently a teammate of Brady himself.
Now, however, they have somehow gone from front to point – the BOK and that other guy.
Brady was obviously looking for his 31st playoff game, a record. Heinicke was looking for his first win of any kind as an NFL starter.
However, in the two-minute warning, the scoreboard reads: Tampa Bay 31, Washington 23. A game with one score. Washington had the ball. Anything was possible.
Heinicke was not in an NFL rankings in 2019. In the spring of 2020, he joined the St. Louis BattleHawks of the XFL joined, only he could not even conquer the starting position. When the league folded and the NFL interest did not materialize, he thought it would be time to move on with life.
He re-enrolled at Old Dominion to complete his engineering degree. The 2020 NFL season went on without him. In early December, in the middle of the finals, Washington called and offered him a job for the rest of the season. It was not glamorous. Washington actually wanted him to be a quarantine quarter, just in case everyone else got COVID-19 and couldn’t play.
Hey, that was a chance. Heinicke asked his professors for an extension of his final exam.
“I had to email them and tell the whole situation and ask if I could take it after the season,” Heinicke said.
Ah, the old excuse-I-just-got-now-quarter-in-the-NFL-excuse …
“They were very nice about it,” he said.
Things progressed rapidly. Due to injuries (Alex Smith) and immaturity (Dwayne Haskins), Heinicke found himself in the Week 16 game in Washington. He went 12-for-19 and gave up an attack, just the second of his career. Smith returned for the final season, but was then ruled out of Saturday’s wild card game with calf pain.
Similarly, it was Heinicke against the future Hall of Famer.
Brady was Brady, 381 yards and two touchdowns over. Tampa was not great, but carried out a balanced attack that should have been enough to comfortably win against an unnamed QB. Except that Heinicke apparently did not receive the memo. In fact, he said he made a point of not even thinking about how Tom Brady was on the other side.
“I just wanted to go out there and finish the ball,” Heinicke said. ‘Just complete the ball and get it first’
This he did. He struck on the run. Then he ran when they thought he would succeed. He cleared up mistakes. He throws for 306 yards and hits. He rushed another 46 meters and another score – concluded by a brilliant dive to the pillar, which made a two-point match at the time.
“He has the ‘it’ factor,” said offensive lineman Washington, Morgan Moses. “You can not learn it.”
However, the dive was painful and tore an AC joint in his shoulder. A few hard hits during the next series sent Heinicke to the locker room, but he came on the field again and did not miss a beat.
“It was nasty,” Washington coach Ron Rivera said. “It really was.”
Across the NFL, the questions were the same. How was this guy not in the league? And where’s the guy who started in the XFL about him? (He’s not in the league either.)
“He played a lot,” Tampa coach Bruce Arians said. “He has a lot of standing.”
Now he needed another. On the third point, with the ball at the 49-yard Tampa line, he tried to do too much and fired. Now it was desperation, with a pack of Bucs coming towards him. He turned around, backed up and finally charged it.
Heinicke tried to write the Disney movie. And Disney movies are fun. Reality is another animal. The pace was high and floating. The Tampa defense flattened it.
The dream was over. Tom Brady would win again. Afterwards, they shared a moment of mutual congratulations.
“We put everything out there,” Heinicke said. ‘But just came a little short.
Heinicke’s moment in the spotlight is not necessarily over. Maybe he will never play in a playoff game against Tom Brady again, but you play like that and you do not register for more engineering classes. Washington will keep him, or someone will pick him up.
“A man like him who works hard for what he does has created an opportunity for him,” Rivera said.
“I was in the real world,” Heinicke remarked. “It’s not nice. Not as nice as this. ”
About that real world. The season is over, those finals are waiting.
“Hopefully these professors will send me an email and say, ‘You’ve passed, you’re fine,'” Heinicke said as a joke.
“I’m pretty sure that will not happen,” he continued. ‘In a few weeks I’ll take it. And hopefully they pass. ”
More from Yahoo Sports: