It might not be a huge surprise that Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, who meet this weekend in the AFC championship game, lead the list. But what about Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts?
A “clutch” quarterback can mean a few different things. Oftentimes it’s the ability to deliver crucial plays in critical moments or keep a team in a position to win a game despite adverse situations.
A lot of times, this just means not turning the ball over.
That attribute matters most in the most important games of any given season – the postseason – and 2024 wasn’t any different. Three of the six losing quarterbacks in the first round combined for 10 turnovers. In the divisional round, three of the four losing quarterbacks – Lamar Jackson, Matthew Stafford and Jared Goff – combined for eight turnovers in their respective games.
Meanwhile, the winning quarterbacks from the divisional round – Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Jayden Daniels and Jalen Hurts – didn’t turn the ball over once.
This trend extends well past the 2024 season, too, and has been a growing trend among the current crop of NFL quarterbacks.
For instance, Mahomes has thrown only 14 pickable passes in his 19 career playoff games, and just two during his past three postseason runs (including 2024). Pickable passes are throws that could be or should have been intercepted by the defense, regardless of if it was actually intercepted, incomplete, or caught by the receiver. Jackson, meanwhile, has 11 pickable passes in eight career playoff games, including four in the past two postseasons.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Mahomes is 16-3 in the postseason while Jackson is 3-5.
The standard for “clutch” doesn’t just mean holding onto the football, though. A true game-changing quarterback needs to raise the level of its offense in the playoffs beyond the box score. Playoff winning percentage is important because the ultimate goal at the end of the game is to win, but it doesn’t paint the full picture of a quarterback’s or offense’s ability.
So, the best way to ascertain which quarterbacks are truly elite in the postseason is to look at the two biggest factors that disrupt or determine a team’s ability to win: The aforementioned pickable passes as well as overall offensive success for that quarterback’s team.
We looked at every quarterback who’s started at least three playoff games and won at least one since 2016 to determine who is the most clutch quarterback in the postseason. This meant that Daniels, whose upstart Washington Commanders take on the rival Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC championship game this weekend, wasn’t included on this list despite his two turnover-free and pickable pass-free playoff debuts this season.
There were 20 quarterbacks who fit that criteria, from C.J. Stroud’s four starts in his first two years to Brady’s 17 since 2016 and Mahomes’ insane 19 since 2018.
The most obvious names pop up as the most successful playoff quarterbacks: Mahomes has the most clutch performances since 2016 with an impressively-low 1.99% pickable pass rate and 44.38% offensive success rate in the playoffs – both of which lead the group.
He and Brady also lead the way with three Super Bowls each during this span, although Brady has another three from before 2016. Over this span, Brady has the best touchdown-to-interception ratio in the fourth quarter of close games (the score between seven points either way) with 25 touchdowns and just three picks.
Mahomes (28 TDs/8 INTs) is fifth on that list behind Brady, Ben Roethlisberger (24/5), Aaron Rodgers (31/8) and Dak Prescott (25/7), while Allen is seventh (23/7).
Allen, despite his big losses in the postseason, is right alongside Mahomes on the clutch factor. Goff, Rodgers and Matt Ryan aren’t too far behind, either, with impressive offensive success rate numbers and slightly worse pickable pass rates.
Stafford should get some praise here as well, considering his 2.20% pickable pass rate is second behind Mahomes. While his offensive success rate in the postseason isn’t as high, he successfully led three game-winning drives in the fourth quarter comeback of his 2021 title run, including a game-sealing touchdown to Cooper Kupp in Super Bowl LVI.
This chart just looks at the playoffs, though, and some quarterbacks are simply better (or worse) when the stakes are higher. So, let’s compare each one’s offensive success rates and pickable pass rates from the playoffs and the regular season.
When looking at the difference, you can see which separates the clutchest QBs from those that crumble under the lights.
A lot of the same names appear even when you bring regular season differentials into the equation. Mahomes, Allen and Rodgers remain, but a few surprises pop up across the board.
Nick Foles’ legendary 2017 run puts him in impressive company on this list, although he wasn’t able to really ever replicate that success – for the Eagles or anyone else. Goff has had some long postseason runs for the Lions and Rams, so the fact that his disastrous 2024 divisional loss to the Commanders didn’t drop him below the threshold is intriguing.
Baker Mayfield, oddly enough, looks like one of the best playoff quarterbacks in terms of mitigating mistakes and elevating his offense. Yet, he has just one playoff win under his belt and it came during his time with the Browns.
And then you have Hurts, who despite being a whisper away from a Super Bowl win in 2022 is very much in the non-clutch section. He’s only had one playoff game in which his offensive success rate was better in the postseason than the regular season, and it came in the 2022 divisional round drubbing of the New York Giants.
The only other game in which he closely mirrored his regular season success rate was in the Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs. Otherwise, Hurt has been a pretty pedestrian playoff quarterback. Can he change that this weekend in the NFC championship game?
The most curious case is Lamar Jackson, who has a very similar and quality offensive success rate in the playoffs but one of the worst pickable pass differentials among the 20 quarterbacks.
His pickable pass rate jumps by 1.4% from the regular season to the playoffs, which is the fourth-worst differential in this group ahead of only Jimmy Garroppolo, Dak Prescott and Brock Purdy. Since 2016, Jackson has the 19th-worst touchdown-to-interception ratio in the fourth quarter of games within seven points either way with 15 TDs and nine picks.
Jackson also only had one game in which his pickable pass rate was more than 1% better in the postseason than the regular season.
Unsurprisingly, most of the quarterbacks with a worse pickable pass rate in the playoffs than the regular season also won fewer than half of their games. This includes Jackson, Garoppolo and Prescott, as well as Roethlisberger, Drew Brees and Russell Wilson (but again, this is only since 2016). Notably, a few players with better pickable pass rates like Goff and Mayfield, still only won fewer than 50% of their games.
If we’re trying to find the most-clutch quarterbacks since 2016, only four in this group had a better offensive success rate and better pickable pass rate in the postseason than in the regular season and also won at least 50% of their playoff games: Mahomes, Allen, Rodgers and Foles. Three of those four have at least one Super Bowl, too, with Allen being just one game away from his Super Bowl appearance.
There is no perfect clutch quarterback. Mahomes is clearly at the top of his game – with Brady before him – and Rodgers was electric when he was in the postseason during his prime. The rest all have their flaws or still haven’t won when it mattered most. Foles hasn’t even started more than two games in a season since 2020.
Situation dictates a lot of outcomes, too. Mahomes is in the perfect system under Andy Reid in Kansas City with an impressive defense behind him now… and three Super Bowl rings to prove it. Allen is creeping into that territory despite three bad losses in must-win situations over his past four playoffs – three divisional games and one AFC championship game.
The 2024 conference championship games should answer some major questions about the four remaining questions as well: Will Mahomes maintain his top clutch QB status? Can Allen move up a level? Will Hurts prove he can be momentous in big moments? Oh yeah, and can the rookie Daniels keep up his impressive postseason run?
We’ll see.
