Thirteen Heisman Winners Kick Off Their 2026 NFL Seasons This Week

The 2026 NFL season kicks off tonight with a Super Bowl rematch between the champion Seattle Seahawks and the reigning AFC champs New England Patriots.

Neither team has a Heisman winner, although Seahawk third-string QB and former Alabama signal-caller Jalen Milroe was sixth in the 2023 balloting while Patriot starter and former North Carolina star Drake Maye was 10th in 2022.

Thursday’s contest between San Francisco and Los Angeles is another Heisman-winner-free game, but Stanford’s 2015 Heisman runner up Christian McCaffrey will again suit up for the 49ers as will two other top 10 finishers in back-up QBs Mac Jones (third-place for Alabama in 2022) and Kurtis Rourke (ninth for Indiana in 2024). The Rams also feature their share of Heisman top 10 vote-getters, including back-up QB and Georgia 2022 fourth-place finisher Stetson Bennett and former Michigan running back and 2023 ninth-place finisher Blake Corum.

Heisman vs. Heisman matchups begin in earnest on Sunday. Tampa Bay starter Baker Mayfield, he of the newly signed three-year, $165 million extension, takes on Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow in a battle between the 2017 and 2019 Heisman winners.

Burrow has taken the Bengals to a Super Bowl in 2022, but has largely suffered through frustrating injury-marred seasons outside of that. Mayfield’s career has been re-born as a Buc and the nine-year veteran is poised to make another playoff run.

Two slightly more recent Heisman winners will also square off in the first wave of games Sunday as third-year Chicago Bear starter Caleb Williams takes on fourth-year Carolina Panther Bryce Young.

Both players made their NFL postseason debuts in 2025. Williams, the 2022 Heisman winner, guided Chicago to the No. 2 seed and a playoff win before falling to the Rams in the divisional playoffs. Young guided Carolina to a division title, but his Panthers bowed out to the Rams in the first round.

Philadelphia hosts Washington in the late afternoon slot with 2020 Heisman winner DeVonta Smith’s Eagles facing 2023 winner Jayden Daniels’ Commanders. For Smith — one of the NFL’s most consistent receivers since joining the league in 2021 — the game mark’s his first as the Eagles’ No. 1 receiver. For Daniels, it is a chance to start shaking off the sophomore slump that bogged down his 2025 campaign. Heisman vet Marcus Mariota (2014) is back as Daniels’ backup on the Commanders.

Baltimore returns with its tandem of 2015 and 2016 Heisman winners in Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson. They open the season in Indianapolis.

Kyler Murray, the 2018 Heisman winner, will be filing his state taxes in a different time zone as the new starter in Minnesota. He’ll get a crash course in the new home team’s main rivalry as the Vikings host Green Bay.

Travis Hunter (2024) returns for his second season in Jacksonville, still a two-way star for the Jaguars. He missed a huge chunk of his rookie season with an injury and begins Year 2 against Cleveland.

2025 Heisman winner and NFL rookie Fernando Mendoza will begin 2026 as the Raiders’ backup behind veteran Kirk Cousins as Las Vegas hosts Miami. The dean of Heisman winners in the league, Jameis Winston, has spent more and more hours outside of football holding a mic in his burgeoning broadcasting career. Sunday, he’ll again be the No. 2 QB for the Giants, holding the clipboard, but ready to go in at any time.

Many of our Heisman winners dot the all-time NFL career charts heading into 2026.

Henry enters his 11th season in 10th on the NFL’s career rushing chart with 13,018 yards. Barry Sanders is the only Heisman winner with more career rushing yards (15,269). Henry is also now fourth on the NFL’s career rushing touchdown list (122) and needs one more to catch fellow Heisman winner Marcus Allen.

Mayfield leads active Heisman winners in NFL career passing yards (28.525) and is 65th on the NFL career list.

Jackson is 104th on the all-time career passing yards chart (22,608) but is higher on the NFL career rushing chart (89th, 6,522). He sits 65th in total offense (27,883). Jackson is second on both Baltimore’s franchise passing yards and rushing yards career charts.

Smith enters 2026 with three 1,000-yard seasons with the Eagles. Overall, he has 385 career receptions and 5,019 career receiving yards, seventh and 10th, respectively on Philadelphia’s career lists. He also has 31 career TD catches (15th).

Winston, despite playing chiefly as a backup in recent years, is 85th on the NFL’s career passing yards chart with 24,792.

Burrow is 116th on the NFL career passing chart (20,810) while Kyler Murray is 121st (20,460) and 99th in total offense (22,240).