Patrick Mahomes leads a wave of Twitter praise for Washington QB Taylor Heinicke despite loss

The final outcome of the Washington Football Team's playoff game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers wasn't that much of a surprise -- only so many teams have faced Tom Brady in January and lived to tell the tale. What was surprising was how close the score was, and, more notably, the quarterback that behind that close performance: Taylor Heinicke.

Heinicke got the call to go under center Saturday when the Football Team announced that Alex Smith would be inactive. Stories of where the 27-year-old was just one year ago, and immediately before he was signed with his current team, soon flooded social media, making the start that much more inspirational.

Things got even more inspirational when the quarterback began to perform well and even had an incredible highlight where, late in the third quarter, he took off on a gutsy scramble on third down, dove for the pylon and cut the Tampa Bay lead to two.

As the game went on, Heinicke caught the attention of many around the NFL the more impressive his play became. Here are some of the most notable names around the world of football who expressed their support for the backup Washington quarterback trying to make some postseason heroics happen.

Rick Lovato is the Eagles' long snapper who played at Old Dominion with Heinicke.

While Denny Hamlin is obviously not a football player, the owner of the team he drives for, Joe Gibbs racing, was once the Washington head coach who led the franchise to Super Bowl glory. Hamlin is also a Washington Football Team fan, having grown up in the DMV area.