Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen enter NFL playoffs with chances to change narratives

NEW YORK — Lamar Jackson wasn’t in a mood to celebrate.

Sure, his Baltimore Ravens had just clinched the AFC North with a Week 18 victory over the Cleveland Browns, but Jackson arrived at the postgame podium still in uniform, rather than wearing one of shirts or hats commemorating the division crown.

“I’m focused on the wild-card game. I’m not going to lie to you,” Jackson said. “I’m cool with what’s going on today. I’m cool, don’t get me wrong, but my mind’s on something else.”

That something else is the only thing missing from Jackson’s otherwise illustrious résumé.

The 28-year-old quarterback is on a Hall of Fame trajectory, having already won two MVP Awards along with numbers never seen before in the NFL.

In 2024, Jackson became the first player to throw for 4,000 yards and rush for 900 yards in the same season. He also became the first player to throw more than 40 touchdown passes and fewer than five interceptions in the same campaign.

He is 70-24 as a starter in his seven regular seasons.

But Jackson enters Saturday night’s wild-card game against the Pittsburgh Steelers with a 2-4 record in his playoff career. He has thrown six touchdown passes against six interceptions in those games, and his 75.7 postseason passer rating is 26.3 points lower than his regular-season mark.

He is the only two-time MVP in NFL history who hasn’t won a Super Bowl. He hasn’t even made it to one.

That’s the narrative Jackson is trying to change.

“I’d just be too excited,” Jackson said Tuesday of his past playoff games. “That’s all. Too antsy. I’m seeing things before it happened, like, ‘Oh, I got to calm myself down.’ But just being more experienced, I’ve found a way to balance it out.”

But the pressure Jackson faces is not unique to him.

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, too, still seeks his elusive first championship. A ring would validate the career of Allen, whose 76 wins, 262 total touchdowns and 30,595 total yards are the most ever through seven NFL seasons.

His 28 passing touchdowns and 12 rushing touchdowns in 2024 marked the fifth consecutive season that Allen totaled at least 40 touchdowns.

And while his statistics paled in comparison to Jackson’s, most bookmakers expect Allen to win his first NFL MVP Award this year after leading the Bills to a 13-4 record and an AFC East title despite a lesser supporting cast.

Allen, 28, enters Sunday’s game against the Denver Broncos with a 100.0 passer rating and 21 touchdown passes against four interceptions in 10 playoff appearances.

But Allen is just 5-5 in those games and, like Jackson, has never reached a Super Bowl.

“There’s two things I can control: It’s my attitude and my effort,” Allen said Wednesday. “And what everybody else says, that’s their own prerogative.”

Much in the way Tom Brady’s annual excellence limited Peyton Manning’s postseason upside, Patrick Mahomes‘ dynastic run with the Kansas City Chiefs has proven problematic for the other AFC quarterbacks of his era.

Last year, Jackson completed just 54.1% of his passes in a 17-10 loss to Kansas City in the AFC championship game.

Allen is 0-3 in the postseason against the Chiefs.

In the last five years, the Chiefs have won three Super Bowls and reached another. The Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow is the only AFC quarterback to defeat Mahomes during that stretch, but he went on to lose in Super Bowl LVI and has not been back.

This year’s AFC playoffs again run through Kansas City, where Mahomes is 12-2 in his playoff career. This season, the Chiefs went 15-1 in games started by Mahomes — with the lone loss coming in Buffalo in Week 11 — to clinch the AFC’s No. 1 seed.

Kansas City would not face Baltimore or Buffalo until the AFC championship game, making Mahomes likely the final dragon Jackson or Allen would have to slay to reach the Super Bowl.

Before then, Jackson and Allen stand in each other’s ways. Wins by both this weekend would pit Baltimore against Buffalo in the divisional round — the same round in which Allen’s Bills beat Jackson’s Ravens, 17-3, in 2021 in their first playoff meeting.

“We know what’s at stake,” Jackson said Tuesday. “It’s win or go home.”