Lamar Jackson will be the youngest QB to start a playoff game, and that's not a bad thing

Lamar Jackson will be 21 years and 364 days old when he takes the field for the Ravens against the Los Angeles Chargers in their AFC wild-card-round game Sunday, the youngest-ever quarterback to start a playoff game in NFL history.

While fresh-faced quarterbacks have often struggled in postseason play, it hasn’t exactly been a case of the young and the feckless. Starting quarterbacks age 23 and under are 12-15 in playoff games in the NFL’s modern era, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com logs. (Nathan Peterman and Jarious Jackson were both 23 when they played, but not as starters.)

1 of 56

Ravens head coach John Harbaugh celebrates after victory over the Browns by score of 26 to 24 to win the AFC North Championship at M & T Bank Stadium. (Kenneth K. Lam, Baltimore Sun)

There is no correlation between getting marginally older and playing better, either. While Jackson will be the first 21-year-old to start a playoff game, the four quarterbacks who did so at age 22 went a combined 3-4.

Michael Vick, Jackson's childhood idol, was a record 22 years and 192 days young when he went 13-for-25 for 117 yards and a touchdown and added 10 carries for 64 yards in the Atlanta Falcons' 27-7 win over the Green Bay Packers in January 2003. The next week, in an NFC divisional-round matchup, Vick passed for 274 yards but threw two interceptions and was held to 30 rushing yards in a 20-6 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Two 22-year-old playoff starters are familiar to the Ravens — Ben Roethlisberger went 1-1 for the Pittsburgh Steelers; current Ravens reserve Robert Griffin III lost his only playoff start for the Washington Redskins — while the other one is perhaps less so. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Shaun King went 1-1 in January 2000 after taking over midseason for an injured Trent Dilfer, who joined the Ravens the following season.

Overall, the 23-and-under starting quarterbacks have averaged 198.3 passing yards and 14.4 rushing yards per playoff game while combining for 37 touchdowns (32 passing, five rushing) and 28 interceptions.