When the Panthers host the Cardinals in the NFC Championship game next Sunday, an interesting subplot will also be taking place. It turns out that the two teams’ respective quarterbacks will be making NFL history with an incredible stat that, on its surface, seems almost impossible to believe.
Carson Palmer vs. Cam Newton in NFC Championship game is 1st time any Heisman Trophy-winning QBs square off in NFL postseason history.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 18, 2016
When you consider some of the facts surrounding the history of Heisman trophy winners, it’s pretty incredible that this is the first time this has happened. The trophy has been awarded to college football’s most outstanding player since 1935, and since that time, a quarterback has won 33 of them. More recently, college quarterbacks have dominated the Heisman podium, taking home the award 13 times since 2000. You would think that just based on the sheer volume of Heisman-winning quarterbacks that two of them would have faced each other in the playoffs by now.
Let’s take a peek at all of the recent QB-winners (non-Carson Palmer or Cam Newton editions) and see if we can make some sense of this.
2000 – Chris Weinke (Florida State)
2001 – Eric Crouch (Nebraska)
2003 – Jason White (Oklahoma)
2004 – Matt Leinart (USC)
2006 – Troy Smith (Ohio State)
2007 – Tim Tebow (Florida)
2008 – Sam Bradford (Oklahoma)
2011 – Robert Griffin III (Baylor)
2012 – Johnny Manziel (Texas A&M)
2013 – Jameis Winston (Florida State)
2014 – Marcus Mariota (Oregon)
Well, maybe it’s starting to make a little bit more sense. When you consider the rag-tag bunch that makes up a good portion of that list, it’s not as surprising that Palmer and Newton will be the first to share in this fun little footnote in NFL history.
For Palmer, it has to be especially pleasing considering the path he took to get here. The 2002 Heisman winner has battled back from numerous injuries and career setbacks in order to get back to the playoffs for only the third time in his 13-year NFL career. A decade ago, it would have been easy to assume that he’d be a fixture in the NFL playoffs for years to come. But incredibly, Sunday’s win against the Packers was only the third time he has appeared in a playoff game since he came into the league, and his first appearance since 2009.
For Newton, the path has been a bit more smooth, as he has now lead the Panthers to the playoffs in three straight seasons, which of course has been capped by his MVP-like performance in 2015.
With any luck, we may see a couple more Heisman winners in Winston and Mariota make their way to the playoffs in years to come, increasing the odds that we won’t have to wait another 81 years for this statistical oddity to repeat itself.
