Brock Purdy, Trevor Lawrence and Daniel Jones all earned their first career playoff starts with performances for the history books. It was the first time since the 2017 season that three QBs had won in their first playoff starts in the same postseason.
Purdy started the weekend for San Francisco throwing for 332 yards and three touchdowns and running for another score in a 41-23 win over Seattle on Saturday.
Purdy became the first rookie quarterback to score four touchdowns in a playoff game by becoming the first rookie QB to earn a playoff start since Russell Wilson in 2012.
Picked 262nd in the draft as “Mr. Irrelevant,” Purdy was the lowest-drafted rookie quarterback to earn a playoff start, moving up 110 spots after TJ Yates, who won for Houston in 2011.
The only rookie QBs to throw for more yards in a playoff game than Purdy are Wilson, who threw for 385 yards against Atlanta in his second postseason start in 2012, and Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh, who had 335 in his first playoff start against Chicago. in 1937.
Lawrence, the No. 1 overall pick in 2021, followed that up with a rollercoaster performance against the Chargers.
Lawrence followed up four first-half interceptions with four touchdowns to lead the Jaguars to the third-biggest comeback in playoff history when they rallied from 27-0 to beat the Chargers 31-30 on Saturday night .
The only biggest playoff comebacks came when Buffalo came from 35-3 down to beat Houston 41-38 in overtime on Jan. 3, 1993, and when Indianapolis rallied from a 38-10 deficit to beat Kansas City. 45-44 on January 1. 4, 2014.
The comeback was the Jaguars’ third down by at least 16 points in their last 10 games after doing so once in their first 455 games as a franchise. Jacksonville was 1-125 as it led by at least 16 points heading into this recent run that began with a 27-20 victory over Las Vegas in Week 9 after losing 17-0.
Lawrence joined Ben Roethlisberger (2020 season vs. Cleveland) as the only QBs with at least four TD assists and four steals in the same game.
Jones took until his fourth season to make the playoffs for the first time, but the wait was worth it when he threw for 301 yards and rushed for 78 yards in a 31- 24 against Minnesota.
Jones joined Steve Young and Lamar Jackson as the only QBs to throw for at least 300 yards and rush for at least 70 yards in a playoff game. But Jones is the first two to do so in a win and the first to do so with at least two TD assists.
DOMINANT DIVISION
Victories for the Cowboys and Giants gave the NFC East three teams in the Divisional Round, with first-place Philadelphia earning a bye.
It was only the third time three teams in a division had progressed this far in the playoffs, the last time in 1997 when NFC teams Central Minnesota, Green Bay and Tampa Bay did so.
The other team that happened was also in the NFC in 1992 when the Cowboys, Eagles and Washington all advanced to the Divisional Round.
SEVENTH SEEDS
Since the NFL expanded the playoffs to seven teams per conference in 2020, none of the additional teams to enter have won a game.
Seattle lost 41-23 to San Francisco in the NFC on Saturday and Miami fell 34-31 to Buffalo, dropping the seventh-seeded combined record to 0-6.
The average margin of victory in those games has been 12.2 points per game with only two decided by less than 12 points, including Buffalo’s 27-24 win over Indianapolis two years ago.
JUST FOR FUN
Dallas kicker Brett Maher had a game to forget.
Maher missed his first four extra-run tries in the win over Tampa Bay — twice as many missed extra-runs as any kicker had ever had in a playoff game.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no kicker had missed four extra runs in a game since it began looking for kickers in 1932.
Only one other kicker in the last 29 seasons had even missed three extra points in any game with Matt Gay making it for Tampa Bay against Atlanta in 2019.
Maher made his last try but Tampa Bay went for 2-point conversions after both touchdowns, leading to an extra point on seven touchdowns. It’s the third time in the past 50 years that a game has had seven or more touchdowns and one or fewer extra points.
Philadelphia and Detroit missed an extra point and seven 2-point conversion attempts in a 34-20 Eagles win in 2013; and Indianapolis and Baltimore combined for an extra point after seven touchdowns in the Ravens’ 31-25 overtime win in 2021.
RETURN TO SENDER
The Bengals’ victory over the Ravens resulted in one of the most unlikely games in playoff history.
Tyler Huntley lost a fumble trying to stretch the ball over the goal line in the fourth quarter of a tie game and Sam Hubbard picked it up and ran 98 yards for the game-winning touchdown for Cincinnati.
The play was the longest fumble return score in playoff history and tied for the fourth-longest defensive touchdown ever in the playoffs. According to the NFL NextGen statistics model, the game increased the Bengals’ probability of winning from 45.8% to 87.6%.
The only longest defensive touchdowns in playoff history were Taron Johnson’s 101-yard interception return for Buffalo against Baltimore on January 16, 2021; George Teague’s 101-yard pick for Green Bay against Detroit on January 8, 1994; and James Harrison’s 100-yard interception return for Pittsburgh against Arizona in the Super Bowl after the 2008 season.
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