“Lamar Jackson Has To Start Having Playoff Losses Like Josh Allen”: Ryan Clark Gives His Take On The Ravens QB’s Playoff Struggles

Since 2019, Patrick Mahomes has undoubtedly been the most successful player in the NFL thanks to his postseason success. But if we discounted the playoffs, the best player of the last six years in the league would certainly be Lamar Jackson.

He’s won two MVPs (and probably should have won a third), earned three First-Team All-Pros, led the league in passing TDs in 2019, led the league in passer rating in 2024, and completely rewrote the QB rushing record books. Jackson has really done it all, prior to January football. When the playoffs arrived, he did not perform at the same unbeatable level that he did during the fall.

Jackson has not been bad. His inability to perform in the playoffs has been largely overblown, with Mark Andrews’ two-point drop being a prime example. But he hasn’t been MVP-level Lamar in the postseason. ESPN analyst Ryan Clark believes that, even if his team doesn’t play well, Jackson has to prove he has what it takes to carry his team through the cold winter months and on down to the sunny Super Bowl.

“Lamar Jackson has to start having playoff losses like Josh Allen’s 2021 Divisional Round playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Where we’re saying there’s nothing else Lamar Jackson could have done. We can’t say, oh well, if he doesn’t fumble early. Or if he doesn’t throw that interception in the first half against Buffalo, maybe this game is different.”

Many hold the belief that Jackson receives unfair criticism in these conversations. But there’s no doubt that there is a stark contrast in his regular season and playoff numbers.

Here are some of his splits for regular season vs. postseason: 64.9 regular season completion percentage vs. 60.6 in the playoffs, 6.4 TD rate (highest among active players) vs. 4.1, 1.9 INT rate vs. 2.9, and a 102.0 passer rating vs. 84.6. That last one is one of the starkest drops you will see.

Clark did agree that Andrews “has to catch that football”, but suggested “we don’t get to that point” without earlier mistakes from Jackson. While it’s clear that Jackson makes more mistakes in the postseason than he does in the playoffs, it feels like his errors are overindexed.

Patrick Mahomes has won four playoff games while committing a turnover. This is a team game after all. We can’t blame a loss on a first-half interception if we’re being honest about our analysis here. Hindsight is always 20/20, but we have to resist that type of “what if” analysis.

Clark went on to talk about the 2023 AFC Championship. Where, again, Jackson did not play flawlessly, but his teammates were even further from the same (looking at you, Zay Flowers). The criticisms and comparisons don’t always feel fair or honest. But there’s one simple truth: if Lamar Jackson wants to quiet the critics, all he needs to do is win big in January.