On paper, the Houston Texans' C.J. Stroud is a better playoff quarterback than Lamar Jackson

Lamar Jackson is the NFL's present, and C.J. Stroud is the NFL's future. Both men have had success so far in their careers; Jackson is a former MVP winner, while Stroud is arguably already a Top 10 quarterback, who is also the front-runner for the 2023 MVP award. They're both fantastic quarterbacks.

Yet, in the playoffs, things changed. Jackson has struggled a lot. Wins and loss records aside, Jackson hasn't played well in the playoffs. His accuracy drops, his turnovers go up, and he becomes highly inefficient. For Stroud, fans have gotten more of the same brilliant quarterback play so far from him.

Now, Stroud has only played in one playoff game, but Jackson has only played in four. It's not like we're comparing Stroud to Tom Brady; who had 48 playoff games. A three-game difference isn't a huge difference in the NFL.

So it's fair to say that based on Stroud's one game and Jackson's four, Stroud is the better playoff quarterback; so far.

Credit where it's due, while the above graphic depicts Stroud and Jackson as both having three touchdowns, that's not true, as Jackson actually has four. He has a rushing touchdown that was not included. A small point, but one that needs to be made. So it's not an even one-to-one in the touchdown department but Stroud is averaging more per game than Jackson.

And it's also worth noting that the Browns were one of the best teams in the league this season, while the teams Jackson lost to, the Los Angeles Chargers and Tennessee Titans, weren't exactly the best of the best. The Chargers had 12 wins in 2018 but many doubted their ability to win games against better opponents. While the Titans had just nine wins in 2019.

So Jackson hasn't done well against very average playoff competition. Stroud has. Stroud hasn't needed any of the excuses afforded to Jackson, and he hasn't needed them. He's shown all year that he's a great passer, and he's going to do his best to topple the Ravens in one of the biggest days of his life.

So on paper, yeah, it does look like Stroud is the better quarterback, but that'll be truly tested on Saturday when both squads clash. If Stroud outplays Jackson, who knows what happens next for the franchise and for their quarterback?