He played college football for the TCU Horned Frogs, where he was a two time All-American prior to being selected by the Redskins in the first round of the 1937 NFL draft.

Baugh also played as a punter and safety, leading the NFL in punting average five times and in defensive interceptions with 11 in 1943.

[5] About a month before he started at Washington State, however, Baugh hurt his knee while sliding into second base during a game, and the scholarship fell through.

[5] After coach Dutch Meyer told him he could play three sports (football, baseball, and basketball),[6] Baugh attended Texas Christian University.

[6] Originally unsure about playing professional football, he did not agree to the contract until after the College All-Star Game, where the team beat the Green Bay Packers 6–0.

[1] After college, Baugh signed a contract with the St. Louis Cardinals and was sent to the minor leagues to play with the American Association Columbus Red Birds, after being converted to shortstop.

[9] As expected, Baugh was selected in the first round (sixth overall) of the 1937 NFL draft by the Washington Redskins, the same year the team moved from Boston.

[1] During his rookie season in 1937, Baugh played quarterback (although in Washington's formation he was officially lined up as a tailback or halfback until 1944), safety, and punter, set an NFL record for completions with 91 in 218 attempts and threw for a league-high 1,127 yards.

[1] His 335 passing yards remained the most ever in a playoff game by any rookie quarterback in NFL history until Russell Wilson broke the record in 2012.

[1] In the 1942 Championship game, Baugh threw a touchdown pass and kept the Bears in their own territory with some strong punts, including an 85-yard quick kick, and Washington won 14–6.

Baugh had what many consider to be the greatest single-season performance by a pro football player during 1943 in which he led the league in pass completions, punting (45.9-yard average) and interceptions (11).

[1][10] That season, the Redskins finished 4–8, but Baugh had career highs in completions (210), attempts (354), yards (2,938) and touchdown passes (25), leading the league in all four categories.

[1] In his final game, a 27–21 win over Philadelphia at Griffith Stadium, he played for several minutes before retiring to a prolonged standing ovation from the crowd.

[2] Baugh won numerous NFL passing titles and earned first-team All-NFL honors four times in his career.

[1][10] By the time he retired, Baugh set 13 NFL records in three player positions: quarterback, punter, and safety.

As noted by Michael Wilbon in The Washington Post, the football of Baugh's era was rounder at the ends and fatter in the middle than the one used today, making it far more difficult to pass well (or even to create a proper spiral).

[15] While playing for the Redskins, Baugh and teammate Wayne Millner were assistant coaches for the Catholic University Cardinals, and went with them to the 1940 Sun Bowl.

The episodes ran in theaters as Saturday matinees; it also starred Duncan Renaldo, later famous as TV's Cisco Kid.

[2][18] Robert Duvall patterned the role of Gus McCrae in the television series Lonesome Dove after Baugh, particularly his arm movements, after visiting him at his home in Texas in 1988.

[2] According to his son, Baugh derived far more pleasure from ranching than he ever had from football, saying that he enjoyed the game, but if he could live his life over again, he probably wouldn't play sports at all.

Similar to the nicknaming of fellow football great Byron "Whizzer" White of Colorado, sportswriters had tagged "Slinging Sammy".

During his last years, he lived in a nursing home in a little West Texas town called Jayton, not far from Double Mountain Ranch.