Heisman busts: 12 biggest Heisman Trophy winners who flamed out in the NFL

21st century Heisman winners who weren’t serious NFL Draft prospects

Chris Weinke probably shouldn’t have won the Heisman, to begin with, but here we are. He was 28-years-old playing among boys when he won it in 2000. His Florida State Seminoles were coming off a national championship over the Virginia Tech Hokies the year before. This felt more like a legacy award than anything, as Weinke never did all that much at the pro level.

He was a fourth-round pick by the Carolina Panthers in the 2001 NFL Draft at age-28. Weinke spent six years in Charlotte primarily as Jake Delhomme‘s backup. While Weinke was part of the NFC Championship team in 2003, he was infamously the Panthers starter in 2001 when they went a rancid 1-15.

He went 2-18 in 20 career starts in the NFL, having last played with the 2007 San Francisco 49ers. After retiring from playing in the NFL at the age of 35, Weinke would embark on a coaching career, first with the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida and most notably as the quarterbacks coach with the St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams. He is now the Tennessee Titans quarterbacks coach.

Eric Crouch won the 2001 Heisman Trophy as the running quarterback of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Though the legendary Tom Osborne had retired and had become the university’s athletic director, Crouch was the best player to have played for then-head coach Frank Solich at Nebraska in the early 2000s.

Crouch edged out a promising pro-passer by the name of the Rex Grossman with the Florida Gators. Perhaps the Heisman voters felt guilty by not giving it to former Cornhuskers running quarterback Tommie Frazier back in 1995? This feels like an attempted make-up for that wrong from six years prior, but it’s an overcorrection in hindsight.

As for Crouch’s pro career, he was drafted in the third round of the 2002 NFL Draft by the then-St. Louis Rams to play wide receiver. Crouch still obviously wanted to play quarterback. So after the 2005 NFL season where he was a practice squad player for the Kansas City Chiefs, Crouch would play in NFL Europe, the CFL, the AAFL and the UFL. In short, he had basically no NFL career at all.

Jason White won the 2003 Heisman Trophy as a unanimous All-American quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners. With bad knees, the guy never sniffed the NFL, as he was the only former Heisman winner to never even be drafted. He would get a tryout with the Kansas City Chiefs and signed as an undrafted free agent with the Tennessee Titans, but never played in a game.

We’ll get to another brittle former Sooners quarterback here in a bit, but White winning the Heisman over several other great players up for the award in 2003 is just plain laughable these days. Larry Fitzgerald finished second, Eli Manning finished third and Darren Sproles finished fifth, all of whom had varying levels of great NFL careers. White had zero shot at the NFL at all.

Troy Smith is the last Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback of the 21st century who never really was seen as a serious pro prospect at the NFL level. The 2006 winner from the Ohio State Buckeyes would go on to be a fifth-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens in the 2007 NFL Draft. He played a little bit in the late 2000s but served primarily as a backup during his brief NFL career.

In 2007, Smith backed up Steve McNair and Kyle Boller in Baltimore. The Ravens would draft Joe Flacco in the first round in 2008, so Smith never really had any hopes of being a full-time starter in the Charm City. He spent the 2010 NFL season with the San Francisco 49ers and the 2012 NFL season on the Pittsburgh Steelers practice squad. Smith retired after the 2014 CFL season.