Can Athan Kaliakmanis replace Sam Hartman?
May 4, 2026
by Steve Thomas
Somewhat surprisingly, Washington drafted Rutgers quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis with pick 7 in round 7 of the 2026 draft. Clearly, the intent of this pick was to provide competition for the team’s current #3 quarterback, Sam Hartman. The question of the day is whether Kaliakmanis can replace Hartman. This is obviously the most important issue facing the Washington team right now, so we’re going to get into this today.
Kaliakmanis, who is 6’2” and 216 pounds, spent a total of 5 years in college, including 3 seasons at Minnesota from 2021 through 2023 and two years at Rutgers in 2024 and 2025. He redshirted in 2021. During that time, he played in a total of 48 games, including 23 at Minnesota and 25 at Rutgers, and completed 658 passes in 1168 attempts, for a 56.3% completion percentage, 8604 yards, 7.4 yards per attempt, 55 touchdowns, and 27 interceptions. Kaliakmanis started for part of the 2023 season and in all of 2024 and 2025. In 2025, he played in 12 games, and made 229 completions in 368 attempts, for a 62.2% completion percentage, 3124 yards, 8.5 yards per attempt, 20 touchdowns, and 7 interceptions.
For his part, Hartman, who is 6’1” and 211 pounds, spent a total of 6 years in college, including 5 seasons at Wake Forest from 2018 – 2022 and one season at Notre Dame in 2024. In total, he played 60 games, and completed 1135 passes in 1898 attempts, for a 59.8% completion rate, 15,656 yards, 8.2 yards per attempt, 134 touchdowns, and 49 interceptions. In 2024 for Notre Dame, Hartman played 12 games, and completed 191 passes in 301 attempts, for a 63.5% completion percentage, 2689 yards, 24 touchdowns, and 8 interceptions.
Here are Hartman’s NFL stats:
_________________
In other words, Hartman has never appeared in a regular season NFL game for Washington, to the point that the team felt the need to sign Josh Johnson to start when both Jayden Daniels and Marcus Mariota were hurt last year. I’m not going to go through the brain damage of finding Hartman’s preseason stats, but suffice to say that he hasn’t been particularly impressive in either of his preseasons in Washington. As a result, it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that the team brought in some competition for Hartman. I think it’s pretty clear that the team doesn’t completely trust that he can eventually replace Mariota as the backup.
Therefore, you shouldn’t be shocked that Washington drafted a late-round quarterback. The surprise was that the player so selected was Kaliakmanis, as opposed to some of the other quarterbacks who were available at this point in the draft, particularly Garrett Nussmeier from LSU, who unexpectedly plummeted, and Jaylon Daniels from Kansas.
Why Kaliakmanis? And can he accomplish the task of replacing Hartman?
My impressions of Kaliakmanis based on his film are that he has a quick release and decent velocity on short to intermediate-range throws. In that capacity, he strikes me as an NFL-worthy pick. He is more than capable of short, quick strikes and won’t harm a team in that role. He was also fairly good under pressure. Where he’s less effective is on deeper throws – he has a tendency to loft deep vertical throws in a way that will almost certainly get intercepted in the NFL. I assume this is due to a lack of arm strength. Again, though, this isn’t evident on short throws.
Also, Kaliakmanis doesn’t often progress through his reads. He regularly stares down his primary target. That’s something he can get away with in college, particularly with the lower levels of competition he faced at Rutgers for most of the season, but won’t work in the NFL. Kaliakmanis strikes me as limited to a West Coast offense style of play – short, quick strikes in a “game manager” style of play.
It should be noted that while his career 56.3% completion percentage is a bad number, he did noticeably improve at Rutgers in 2025, getting up to 62.2%. I haven’t watched every play of his, but it looked to me as though the majority of his inaccurate throws were deeper down the field. That’s going to be limiting in the NFL, certainly. That having been said, he can probably get up the status of a game manager, as least to a limited extent, provided the team gives him time to develop and has a strong running game in support.
Kaliakmanis isn’t necessarily a statue in the pocket, as he did have some carries last season at Rutgers, but he isn’t a “mobile” quarterback, either, in the vein of Jayden Daniels or Marcus Mariota. As a result, Kaliakmanis won’t be able to run Washington’s offense in the same way as Daniels and Mariota since a ground threat is such a big part of their game. That just isn’t Kaliakmanis; in fact, he only averaged 1.6 yards per carry in college, which tracks with his film. He mainly only carried the ball at Rutgers in quarterback sneak situations or on broken plays. In that respect, he was a bit of an odd choice for Washington, although certainly Garrett Nussmeier isn’t exactly an elite rushing threat either.
Finally, I loved his limited interaction with the media after being drafted. Kaliakmanis came across as enthusiastic, motivated, and aware of his place and role on the team. That is secondary to his talent level, of course, but this isn’t a Diego Pavia situation, meaning a ton of unjustified ego. Consider this a minor point in Kaliakmanis’ favor.
The question of whether he can replace Sam Hartman will, of course, be determined in training camp. I think the odds are good simply because Kaliakmanis is a draft pick and Hartman is an undrafted free agent who has already had two season in which to prove his worth, unsuccessfully so. It’s not impossible to think that the team keeps one of them on the practice squad, probably Kaliakmanis, but that strikes me as fairly unlikely. At the end of the day, Hartman seems like a decent enough person and hasn’t caused any problems in Washington, but also hasn’t shown NFL-worthy skills, either. That having been said, Kaliakmanis’ collegiate film didn’t wow me significantly more than what we’ve seen from Hartman. Given the totality of the circumstances, though, I think it’s more likely than not that the team will choose to keep Kaliakmanis over Hartman.