For Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, 2025 could be a legacy-defining season

Examine any objective list of the current best quarterbacks in pro football, and the names Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen will land in the top three or four. Heck, you could make a credible case they should be one-two, in one order or the other.

Jackson and Allen have been as good as you could be for several seasons now. They’ve rung up incredible numbers. They’ve each won MVP awards. They’ve led their teams to the playoffs on multiple occasions. Their combination of athleticism and passing acumen has come to re-define the notion of a “dual threat” quarterback. If you were a mad scientist inventing a quarterback prototype for the year 2025, your product would look something like Jackson and Allen.

There’s just one thing missing from each player’s resume, and it’s the thing for which quarterbacks are most remembered.

A ring.

Expand that conversation on the best quarterbacks in pro football beyond the current moment. Who are the best to ever play the game? The names are legendary. Brady. Montana. Elway. Manning. Marino. Brees. Rodgers. Bradshaw. Aikman. Young. Mahomes. They’ve all won Super Bowls. All but one of them. Dan Marino is the outlier, the exception to a stubborn rule that — fair or foul — is the barometer by which the best of the best are judged. Superb statistics will get your foot in the door. But if you want to earn a seat at the table with the greatest of all time, a ring is essential.

Why is that? No one judges running backs similarly. Or receivers. Or linebackers. No one ever said, “I’d put Junior Seau, or Derrick Thomas, or Brian Urlacher, or Luke Kuechly among the best linebackers of all-time, but I can’t because they never won a ring.” Quarterbacks live by a different standard. They are a team’s field general and its face of the franchise. They are the player upon whom the most praise is heaped, and most criticism is directed, when things go right or wrong. Their salaries define their importance. The fourteen highest-paid players in the NFL are all quarterbacks. The money doesn’t lie. The most important players are compensated the best. And they’re expected to deliver.

Jackson and Allen have delivered like few quarterbacks in the history of the game in the regular season. Jackson has already amassed more rushing yards than any quarterback in league history, while his development as a passer has taken his game to an elite level. The past two seasons, he’s thrown 65 touchdowns against just 11 interceptions and passed for nearly 8,000 yards. Baltimore has won the AFC North both years.

Allen’s numbers the past two years are similarly gaudy. 8,037 passing yards, 57 touchdown passes, 27 rushing touchdowns, top-four in the league in QBR in each of the past three seasons. Like Baltimore, the Bills have won back-to-back division titles. Five in a row, to be exact.

And then January arrives.

It’s not as though Jackson and Allen have been bad in the playoffs. They’ve been… okay. Okay isn’t good enough in the post-season, though. Jackson has a career regular season quarterback rating of 102.0 and a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 3.3-to-1. In the playoffs, those numbers drop to 84.2 and 1.4-to-1. The result has been a string of demoralizing post-season losses, including a 2023 AFC title game at home against Kansas City where the Ravens were decided favorites.

Allen has been better statistically. His quarterback rating actually increases in the post-season — from 93.2 to 101.7 — and his touchdown-to-interception ratio goes from about 3-to-1 to 6-to-1. But Buffalo, despite all of those division titles, is yet to even make the Super Bowl with Allen, much less win a ring. Four agonizing playoff losses to the Chiefs, plus one to Joe Burrow and the upstart Bengals, have squandered all the regular season success the Bills have experienced since 2020.

There is still time for each player to add a Super Bowl chapter to their legacy. Buffalo and Baltimore enter the 2025 season as two of the favorites to win it all. Jackson is just 28 and Allen is 29. The way things have gone lately, with Brady and Rodgers playing into their 40s, and Matthew Stafford still going strong at age 37, both may have many high-level seasons ahead of them. Then again, Jackson and Allen are far different quarterbacks than the three players just mentioned. They run the ball far more, subject themselves to far more contact, and in Jackson’s case, have an extensive injury history. There are no guarantees that either will remain healthy enough to continue to play at an elite level. Nor are their guarantees that the Bills and Ravens will routinely find themselves in a position to get to the Super Bowl. You can only take so many hits, and squander so many opportunities.

Jackson and Allen have both made enough money to set themselves and their families up for lifetimes. And they’ve done enough already to be remembered as two of the best quarterbacks of their generation. But legacies matter to people, and there is no doubt they are eager, perhaps even desperate, to check that box that will get them into the conversation among the best ever. 2025 is a pivotal year in that regard. Both are in their prime, playing for contenders with loaded rosters. Should they fail to get it done this year, will next season provide the same opportunity? Marino went to a Super Bowl his rookie season in Miami and never returned. His is a cautionary tale both Jackson and Allen should remember.

There are no guarantees, and the clock is ticking.

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