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Following their AFC Championship game loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, Lamar Jackson’s playoff record with the Baltimore Ravens now sits at 2-4.
To put that number in perspective, former New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez has four playoff wins to his name and compiled them in just two seasons.
Perhaps more worrisome than his record, however — because wins and losses are a team stat, not a quarterback stat — are the numbers that Jackson has put up in the postseason, which are far below the regular season MVP standards he has set for himself.
In his six playoff games, Jackson has completed less than 60% of his passes in four of them. On Sunday, he completed 54% of his passes, had two turnovers, and had a passer rating of 75.5 (Mahomes’, for comparison, was 100.5).
Jackson ultimately finished the AFC Championship game by completing 20 of 37 passes for 272 yards, one touchdown, and one interception, while also rushing the ball eight times for 54 yards and a fumble (which came on a strip sack).
Going back to the Sanchez comparison from earlier, the former New York Jets signal caller had a career postseason passer rating of 94.3 with 1,155 yards, 9 touchdowns, and 3 interceptions in the six playoff games he appeared in.
Jackson has a passer rating of 75.7 with 1,324 yards, 6 touchdowns, and 6 interceptions in his six career playoff games.
While Jackson is likely going to win the MVP award for this season — the second of his career — his struggles in the playoffs suggest that the difficulty of the postseason offsets his usual dominance, as the quality of his opponent is elevated about the mean.
Lamar Jackson BESIDE HIMSELF following the INT pic.twitter.com/6JcrfdG7Fz
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) January 28, 2024
Jackson just turned 27 years old in January, which means he has plenty of time left in his career barring injury. But given that his athleticism will only decrease as time passes, he and Ravens head coach John Harbaugh are going to have to turn him into a more effective passer in the postseason if they’re going to make it to the Super Bowl.