Josh Allen ahead of Lamar Jackson for NFL all-time QB playoff rushing yards

Allen passed Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young last Sunday

In Sunday’s Super Wild Card Weekend playoff game against the Denver Broncos, Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen ran the ball just eight times. But those eight runs netted the quarterback 46 rushing yards on the afternoon, and brought his career playoff total to 609 yards on the ground.

That now stands as the most career rushing yards in the postseason by an NFL quarterback, past or present.

Allen entered the game behind both Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young (594 yards) and Lamar Jackson (602 yards). It’s game-over for Young, who entered the weekend as the most prolific postseason rushing quarterback but now will forever — or until another quarterback runs past him too — be third.

But the battle for first should continue between Allen and Jackson for some time. It continues with Sunday evening’s divisional round playoff game where they will be on the same field when Allen’s Bills host Jackson’s Baltimore Ravens.

Allen, who’s playing in his 11th playoff game, has taken over as the league’s most prolific postseason rushing quarterback in half as many games as his successor — Young played in 22 postseason games over the course of his 15 NFL seasons. However, Jackson has only played in seven playoff games despite being in the league for as many years as Allen.

During the regular season, Allen has a career average of 5.5 yards per carry as a ball carrier — which he’s done 759 times in his career. That number includes 5.2 yards per carry during the 2024 NFL season — a campaign in which he scored 12 touchdowns and only lost two fumbles (the least of his career, excluding his rookie season in which he didn’t play all 16 games).

When it comes to regular-season numbers, Young still sits ahead of Allen with 5.9 yards per carry over the 722 times he tucked the ball and ran. But Jackson sits above both Allen and Young with a 6.1 yards-per-carry rate for his 1,014 career rushes.

While the battle for the top postseason rushing quarterback will continue this weekend, only one of the two will move on to keep adding to their total the following week. In reality, with Patrick Mahomes still in the playoffs, the NFL leaderboard could look completely different by mid-February.