NFL Analysis
1/16/25
10 min read
Lamar Jackson vs. Josh Allen: A Clash of MVP Hopefuls, Chance to Flip Narratives
Someone has to lose. That’s the unfortunate reality when the Baltimore Ravens play the Buffalo Bills in the Divisional Round of the 2024-25 NFL Playoffs. In a season that has centered around the play of Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, one of them won’t even get to reach the AFC title game.
When legacies and narratives are built around signature playoff wins, this game will (for better or worse and always leaning toward the latter) shape how these quarterbacks are viewed and discussed going forward.
We won’t focus on losing for much longer, but it looms over this matchup between two quarterbacks who have improved to be the best versions of themselves on the field. Allen and Jackson have been the focus of the 2024 season — the leading MVP candidates throughout the year on the offenses that ranked first and second in EPA per play during the regular season, according to TruMedia.
Jackson, already a two-time MVP and on the brink of a third, has reached the Divisional Round just twice before, losing to Allen’s Bills in 2020 and beating the Houston Texans last year only to fall to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game while only scoring 10 points.
Allen’s playoff runs have typically ended with the Chiefs, with losses to Kansas City in 2020, 2021, and 2023.
What makes this year feel so different is how these two quarterbacks have played. Jackson has set the league on fire before, and Allen has gone hero mode on multiple occasions, but both of these quarterbacks feel like complete players at the highest level.
In previous playoff losses, there was something a defense could do to sell out and stop Jackson from taking over. We've seen defenses go super light to match Jackson's speed. Last season, the Chiefs blitzed Jackson more than 40 percent of the time and forced him into bad and inaccurate throws. Meanwhile, Allen has just run into the Chiefs buzzsaw too many times without help. In the 2021 loss, he averaged 0.50 EPA per play, the fourth-highest mark in a playoff loss since 2000, per TruMedia.
Neither of those potential downfalls looks to be the case this year. Jackson has been a complete quarterback with no weaknesses, and Allen might have the most complete offense around him. Both of these quarterbacks are situated for a long playoff run better than they ever have, but they have to face each other this weekend.
Jackson’s Development
Jackson has always been a good passer, despite how he was viewed as a prospect and even through his first few years in the league. Still, he’s never been this good.
In the second year of Todd Monken’s offensive system, the Ravens were much more comfortable spreading things out and creating open passing windows. Jackson took more time to let things develop in the pocket. He’s averaged 0.27 EPA per play from the pocket this season, which is easily the highest of his career, while he increased his time to throw.
Lamar Jackson Plays Inside The Pocket, 2020-2024 (Per TruMedia)
| Year | Dropbacks | EPA/Play | Success% | Comp% | Yd/Att | aDOT | aDOT u10% | Avg Time To Throw | ExplPass% |
| 2020 | 328 | 0.07 | 45.9% | 66.6% | 7.6 | 8.5 | 71.9% | 2.48 | 14.5% |
| 2021 | 368 | 0.04 | 47.8% | 66.2% | 7.7 | 9 | 69.5% | 2.59 | 14.6% |
| 2022 | 297 | 0.05 | 44.0% | 65.0% | 6.9 | 7.9 | 69.7% | 2.55 | 14.2% |
| 2023 | 435 | 0.04 | 46.6% | 68.4% | 7.9 | 8.3 | 69.9% | 2.50 | 15.3% |
| 2024 | 413 | 0.27 | 50.1% | 69.8% | 8.6 | 7.9 | 66.0% | 2.60 | 17.4% |
There’s a calmness in the pocket that has allowed Jackson to trust that something is going to open up. Last season, Jackson threw to his first read on 42.9 percent of his dropbacks, according to FTN Fantasy. That ranked 25th in the league, as Jackson has never been tied to a first read, but he had the league’s highest scramble rate at 11.8 percent. This year, Jackson’s first-read rate dropped to 38.4 percent (39th), and he scrambled less often at 8.3 percent of his dropbacks.
Jackson wants to buy time in the pocket and has done so in service of allowing routes to develop and a receiver to get open.
— Dan's Clips (@dansfilmclips) January 16, 2025
Jackson has made his biggest impact this season in the intermediate area of the field, where he threw more often while having the best efficiency of his career.
Lamar Jackson Intermediate Passing, 2019-2024 incl. playoffs (per TruMedia)
| Year | Att% | EPA/Play | Comp% | TD | INT |
| 2019 | 17.4% | 0.48 | 51.2% | 9 | 2 |
| 2020 | 17.0% | 0.62 | 58.3% | 6 | 1 |
| 2021 | 16.8% | 0.56 | 60.9% | 3 | 1 |
| 2022 | 20.2% | 0.59 | 57.6% | 4 | 0 |
| 2023 | 18.0% | 0.53 | 62.4% | 6 | 0 |
| 2024 | 21.1% | 1.05 | 68.6% | 13 | 0 |
By EPA per play, Jackson had the best regular season throwing to the intermediate level of the field since at least 2000, which is as far back as TruMedia data goes.
Because of the volume, Jackson was also the top in total EPA at that level of the field this season, with only Joe Burrow remotely close to him.
Standing strong in the pocket also helped Jackson against the blitz, which could have been considered his one glaring weakness as a quarterback. Jackson handled the blitz well in his first season as a starter but has been inconsistent since then.
Last season, he struggled while trying to get the ball out quickly, averaging 2.46 seconds to throw. He only averaged 0.03 EPA per play and took a sack on 20.8 percent of his pressures. This season, Jackson held onto the ball longer (2.73 seconds, a career-high) and only took a sack on 11 percent of his pressures. As a result, Jackson averaged a league-best 0.30 EPA per play against the blitz.
Settling Allen down
There is no actually settling Josh Allen down, especially when he’s still off doing things like running after a potentially bad pass that somehow turns into him getting a lateral and running his own pass in for a touchdown, getting credit for a passing and receiving score on the same play.
He’s still running around and buying time in the pocket as he did on the Ty Johnson touchdown against the Broncos in the wild-card game or scrambling to the sideline, making plays that literally no other quarterback has done as often.
But settling down is the closest thing we can get to describing what it’s been like for Allen under offensive coordinator Joe Brady. We wrote about the switch last season when Brady replaced Ken Doresy midseason, and while the efficiency was about the same — or worse than under Dosery in some cases — it was clear there was a foundation being laid for a safer version of Allen.
There were more passes to the middle of the field, shorter passes, and better timing with routes. All of that helped keep the ball out of harm’s way. Fair or not, Allen’s turnovers had become an issue. Even though most were while Allen was trying to spark something on the offense, the rate at which they happened was detrimental to the offense and defense.
Some of last season's improvement was written off as turnover regression during the second half, but there was a fundamental shift in how Allen played, which has carried into the 2024 season.
Per FTN charting, Allen made a turnover-worthy throw on six percent of his passes during the 2022 season. During the first half of 2023, it was 4.3 percent, and it dropped slightly to 3.7 percent after Brady took over. This year, it’s just 2.5 percent, which ranks 11th.
Allen’s average depth of target has remained around the same as it was during the past few seasons, but his average depth of completion dropped to 5.7 yards this year. This season, a career-high 53.7 percent of his passing yards have come after the catch. It’s all stemmed from a more concerted effort to spread the ball around without a true No. 1 receiver.
It’s easy to see the difference in where the ball has gone this season compared to previous ones.
One of Allen’s biggest strengths throughout his career has been his sack avoidance. When pressured, Allen has been one of the league’s best quarterbacks at getting out of a potential sack.
This season, he had just an eight percent pressure-to-sack rate, which led the league and was the lowest for a quarterback in the past five seasons. In fact, Allen has four of the 10 lowest rates in that span.
There might not be a better quarterback at moving around and creating a throwing lane than Allen.
— Dan's Clips (@dansfilmclips) January 16, 2025
Building Off The run
The connecting tissue between Jackson and Allen this season is how the run game has played into making their lives easier behind center.
Baltimore added Derrick Henry to the backfield, and the pairing, with one of the most dynamic quarterbacks and one of the league’s most explosive runners, has caused many issues for opposing defenses. Even when the Ravens decide to run a simple read option, as they did early on against the Steelers in the wild-card game, there’s no right answer for the defense.
Having Henry in the backfield has also put Jackson under center more often, which has been a big boost to his passing. Jackon had more dropbacks under center this season (74) than he did in the previous two years combined (66), and those were his heaviest under-center seasons. From 2019-2021, he did so 27 times combined.
When under center this season, Jackson averaged 9.3 yards per attempt with a 53.9 percent success rate. The Ravens had the highest passing success rate from under center as a team, and only the Lions and Rams had more total EPA overall.
Meanwhile, the Bills have leaned into heavy personnel to run the ball. No team used more formations with six offensive linemen during the regular season. Buffalo weaponized those personnel packages, as we saw against Denver in the wild-card game. Using an extra lineman overpowered the smaller edge defenders for the Broncos and allowed the Bills to win the line of scrimmage against the league’s best run defense from the regular season.
Having a reliable run game is something the Bills have been trying to establish since Allen got into the league. This is the first year it’s really clicked.
The Bills haven’t turned into some run-heavy offense that hopelessly tries to pick up a few yards on every first down, but now they have a changeup. In past seasons, the Bills couldn’t let the run take over a game. Playing the best run defense in the league would have turned into a 60-dropback game for Allen, even though the Broncos were also the best pass defense in the league. It’s lessened the overall load on the quarterback.
Go back up and look at Allen’s passing charts. One thing that stands out is how less dense the 2024 version is, and it’s because Allen did not have to carry the team in every moment. He dropped back 539 times this season. That’s 112 fewer dropbacks than the 2023 regular season. It’s 185 fewer than his 2021 season.
Jackson and Allen have both gotten more favorable passing looks and situations because of the run games built around them, and they’ve taken advantage.
To play quarterback in the AFC is to go through the gauntlet consistently. These have been two of the best quarterbacks in the league this season. They both deserve more than a Divisional Round exit. The loser will unfortunately have to face another season of the “can’t get it done in the playoffs” narrative, even though only one quarterback can win every season. Then, the winner might have to travel to Kansas City to face the one quarterback who has gotten it done and would be looking for a three-peat.
This is no fair way to judge a quarterback, a season, or a legacy. But this is the only path to a championship, and it should give us one of the most exciting playoff matchups we’ve seen in some time.
