Ranking every Heisman winner in the NFL, from Lamar Jackson to RG3

Nine Heisman winners are in the NFL and LSU quarterback Joe Burrow will join that exclusive club very soon. Here’s how the current Heisman winners rank in the NFL hierarchy.

Seeing Heisman Trophy winners fail to transition successfully from college football is not something fans are unfamiliar with. From the likes of Tim Tebow and Matt Leinart to more glorious flame-outs such as Johnny Manziel, the 2000s and 2010s alone have seen their share of Heisman winners get to the next level and fail to capture the same type of success.

Perhaps the biggest testament to this is the fact that only nine former Heisman Trophy winners remain on an NFL roster in the 2019 season. All but one of those nine players were selected in the first round of the NFL Draft (Derrick Henry is the lone exception, a second-round pick). Some of those players have struggled to find success but, breaking the supposed curse, there are several others who have continued their college magic as a professional.

With the 2019 Heisman Trophy set to be handed out soon, it feels an appropriate time to look to the NFL and the success of the former winners currently on rosters and rank them against one another. To do so, we’ll take both past successes, current form and a projection of future success to form these rankings.

We start with a former NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year who was never able to recapture that level of play again.

9. Robert Griffin III (2011, Baylor)

After the Washington Redskins traded up and selected RG3 with the No. 2 pick in the 2012 draft, the Baylor standout looked as if he was about to deliver on their investment. He won Offensive Rookie of the Year and led Washington to the playoffs out of the NFC in his first season. However, a knee injury and how the Redskins organization handled it started a downward spiral that didn’t stop for some time.

Griffin returned from the injury the following season but was a less effective player upon doing so and further injuries continued to plague him over that year and the next in Washington before, in essence, the Redskins cut bait. He was out of the league in 2015 before making a return with the Browns in 2016, starting five games in a dreadful season for Cleveland.

Over the past two years, however, Griffin has settled in as the backup quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens, a seemingly perfect fit behind second-year signal-caller Lamar Jackson. However, it’s hard to wonder how different things could’ve been had things in Washington transpired differently.

8. Marcus Mariota (2014, Oregon)

When Marcus Mariota resided in Eugene, the quarterback checked every box as an elite prospect. From his pinpoint accuracy to his playmaking chops to his athleticism that allowed him to make plays with his legs, the 2014 Heisman winner had everything that would entice NFL teams. So much so that the Titans took him with the second overall pick in 2015.

Over his first four years, however, Mariota never fully captured that at the pro level. Yes, he was efficient and relatively turnover averse but he was also risk-averse, which always put a defined (and low) ceiling on the Titans offense. Even if the box score never backed it up, he was a hindrance to his team when he was under center.

In essence, the only thing that needs to be said about Mariota’s NFL career is that he was benched this season for Ryan Tannehill after going 2-4 over the first six games. In the seven games since Tennessee is 6-1 and has been one of the hottest teams in the league. The Oregon product simply never materialized as the star he was supposed to become.

7. Kyler Murray (2018, Oklahoma)

Following his remarkable ascension from “going to play baseball” to becoming the No. 1 pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, Kyler Murray has been up and down as a rookie. Overall, his numbers don’t look bad at all as the Oklahoma product has thrown for 3,060 yards, 16 touchdowns and only nine interceptions while rushing for 448 yards and four touchdowns as well.

While the box score may look fine, the performance on the field has been questionable at many times, particularly in the second half of the season. Murray has been a shaky decision-maker in many moments, both with his throws and with holding onto the ball for too long behind a lackluster Cardinals offensive line.

Playing under a first-year head coach in Kliff Kingsbury with a poor supporting cast and being in his first season himself, it’s hard to say what the future will hold for Murray. But with the mixed bag that’s been on display so far in his young career, it’s difficult to project him becoming a superstar at this point.

6. Baker Mayfield (2017, Oklahoma)

Once Baker Mayfield was given the keys to the Cleveland Browns offense last season, it seemed that there was no stopping him from being one of the next great stars in the league. Not only was he armed with his brazen personality but he had the juice on the field to back it up.

In 14 games played as a rookie, Mayfield threw for 3,725 yards while completing 63.8 percent of his passes. And while he maintained a bit of a gunslinger mentality in throwing 14 interceptions, he set the rookie passing touchdown record as he helped the Browns find pay dirt 27 times in the 2018 season.

As Cleveland general manager John Dorsey added Odell Beckham Jr. to the fold ahead of 2019 and hired Freddie Kitchens — who helped spark Mayfield and the offense as a coordinator in the quarterback’s first season — things seemed to be trending upward.

Instead, Mayfield and the Browns have been a historic disappointment in 2019. His numbers have regressed across the board while the dysfunction in Cleveland is back to the frustrating norm. It’s hard to know at this point whether Mayfield is part of the solution or part of the problem at this point but that uncertainty lands him in the bottom half of these rankings.

5. Jameis Winston (2013, Florida State)

The 2019 season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers perfectly encapsulates the Jameis Winston experience. After 13 games, Winston is second in the NFL with 4,115 passing yards and tied for second with 26 touchdown tosses. He’s also thrown for 23 interceptions on the season and as at the helm of an offense for a Bucs team that is 6-7.

For all five years since his arrival in Tampa Bay by way of Florida State, Winston has flashed his remarkable arm strength and raw talent that made him the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft and led to him winning the Heisman as a redshirt freshman. But his perplexing decision-making and inconsistency have always held him back from realizing his full potential.

At this point, it feels safe to say that this type of high-variance player is who Winston is as a professional. His future with the Buccaneers is in question beyond the 2019 season but he’s still been talented and productive enough for another team to surely take a shot on him if Tampa Bay does indeed decide to move on.

4. Mark Ingram (2009, Alabama)

During his first two NFL seasons with the New Orleans Saints, it seemed as if Mark Ingram might be on track to be another Heisman bust at the professional level. He didn’t average more than 4.0 yards per carry in either year while combining for just 1,076 yards and 10 touchdowns over his first 26 games. And while his per-carry average jumped in 2013, he managed only 386 yards and one touchdown in the 2013 season.

However, Ingram has since established himself as a consistent presence in the backfield that any NFL team would enjoy utilizing. He’s averaged over 4.5 yards per carry in every season but 2014 since his first two years in the league, has two 1,000-yard seasons to his credit and has career totals of 6,894 rushing yards with 59 touchdowns along with 1,799 receiving yards and eight touchdowns.

Turning 30 years old soon, it remains to be seen how much longer Ingram will be in the NFL. And while he’s never been a superstar, his sustained success as a solid running back gives him a nice landing spot in these rankings.

3. Cam Newton (2010, Auburn)

Cam Newton was, by far, the most difficult player to rank for this list. At the heights of his career since coming out of Auburn, there might not be a former Heisman Trophy winner that can match what the 2010 winner has done at the pro level.

Including winning the 2015 NFL MVP award, Newton has thrown for 29,041 yards, 182 touchdowns and 108 interceptions while also rushing for 4,806 yards and 58 rushing touchdowns. When he’s been healthy, the Panthers quarterback has been one of the unique and unstoppable forces in the league.

While that may be true, the past few years have been less than stellar. Newton combined for 46 passing touchdowns and 29 interceptions over the 2017 and 2018 seasons and, more pressingly, has been hit heavily by the injury bug. A foot injury limited him to just two games in the 2019 campaign and his time in Carolina may now be coming to a close.

Given his uncertain future with the team that selected him first overall and in the NFL on the whole, it’s hard to put Newton any higher than No. 3.

2. Derrick Henry (2015, Alabama)

For the first two seasons of Derrick Henry’s career with the Tennessee Titans, he was effective when given the rock but simply wasn’t being given a ton of opportunities. He notched just 110 carries as a rookie and an increased but still paltry 176 carries in his second year. Though he averaged 4.5 and 4.2 yards per carry, respectively, and had five touchdowns in each of those seasons, he wasn’t a star by any means.

At the end of the 2018 campaign, however, we started to see what Henry could be when relied on heavily. He finished the season with 215 carries for 1,059 yards and 12 touchdowns, which served as a precursor for what he’s done in the 2019 season. Through 13 games, the former Crimson Tide standout has 250 carries for 1,243 yards and 13 touchdowns while also notching a career-high 18 receptions for 206 yards and two scores.

Under head coach Mike Vrabel and with the Titans now moving on from Mariota, it seems that Henry has found his mojo. If he continues on this track given the state of affairs in Tennessee, he should cement himself as one of the best running backs in the NFL.

1. Lamar Jackson (2016, Louisville)

While some might call this recency bias, there is no former Heisman Trophy winner playing in the NFL that has a remote chance to win an MVP award at this current moment and moving forward other than Lamar Jackson and he appears on track to do so in only his second season after falling to the Baltimore Ravens with the final pick in the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft.

Jackson was impressive once he took over for Joe Flacco at the end of his rookie season, throwing for 1,201 yards, six touchdowns and three interceptions (though with a 58.2 percent completion rate) supplemented by 695 rushing yards and five rushing scores.

In his second season with John Harbaugh designing the offense around the quarterback’s elite talents, Jackson has gone to another level. Through 13 games, he has 2,677 passing yards while completing 66.3 percent of his passes with 28 touchdown tosses and only six interceptions while accruing 1,017 rushing yards — only 22 shy of Michael Vick‘s single-season record for quarterback rushing yards — and seven touchdowns as well.

Action Jackson faced plenty of questions entering the NFL but he’s answered them emphatically through his first two seasons. And his unicorn-type skill-set coupled with the faith that Baltimore has put in him seems to indicate that his arrow is pointing up to having one of the greatest careers by a Heisman winner of all time.

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