Defense dominates in the playoffs: Following Super Bowl LX, the PFF passing grade for the 2025 playoffs officially reads 57.1 \u2014 the lowest we have seen since the 2015 postseason.<\/p>\n
Quarterback deterioration: The simplest explanation remains the most accurate one: quarterbacks have just been worse. Not unlucky, or uniquely overmatched by some historic wave of defensive innovation. They\u2019ve just been overly inaccurate, reckless with the football, and unable to string together efficient passing performances over the course of this postseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n
2026 NFL Draft season is here:\u00a0Try the best-in-class\u00a0PFF Mock Draft Simulator<\/a>\u00a0and learn about\u00a02026’s top prospects<\/a>\u00a0while trading and drafting for your favorite NFL team. Get 25% off your PFF+ annual subscription with code PFFFANTASYPODCAST25.<\/p>\n Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfc8 Draft Season 2026<\/p>\n Prepare for the 2026 NFL Draft with PFF+<\/p>\n Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n The 2025 NFL playoffs have done an excellent job of exemplifying the modern power balance in football between offense and defense.<\/p>\n Following a regular season highlighted by elite defensive performances from the Denver Broncos<\/a>, Houston Texans<\/a> and now Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks<\/a>, the playoffs followed a largely similar script.<\/p>\n Save for a few standout games where quarterbacks found a rhythm and restored the natural order of the past decade, this postseason will be remembered for elite defensive play capitalizing on quarterbacks who were out of their depth.\u00a0<\/p>\n While defensive coordinators are certainly drawing up more elaborate schemes than ever before to blur the picture for quarterbacks, the data doesn\u2019t necessarily suggest that defenses are rushing the passer or covering receivers markedly better than they have already been doing over the past five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n PFF\u2019s data points towards a tangible dip in quarterback play during this postseason, independent of defensive quality around the league.\u00a0<\/p>\n We will dive deep into various metrics to quantify this falloff in quarterback play, but the overarching decline is most noticeable when taking a look at the league-wide postseason PFF passing grade.\u00a0<\/p>\n Following Super Bowl LX, the PFF passing grade for the 2025 playoffs officially reads 57.1 \u2014 the lowest we have seen since the 2015 postseason.<\/p>\n The intervening years don\u2019t come close to this level of quarterback play. The next lowest passing grade over the last decade of playoff action was 2018\u2019s respectable 75.4 overall grade. Bear in mind, we\u2019ve seen this grade reach elite heights of 89.4 and 87.0 in the 2016 and 2020 playoff campaigns, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n NFL passing summary by postseason<\/p>\n PostseasonPFF Passing GradePasser Rating202557.181.2202478.095.5202381.397.7202279.290.4202181.194.9202087.090.1201978.193.6201875.484.1201786.196.2201689.491.8201556.877.0<\/p>\n When looking at the raw numbers, these grades are clearly justified. Yards per attempt is down by over a full yard from 7.8 last postseason to 6.7 this year. Meanwhile, the overall completion percentage has dipped below 60% for the first time since the 2008 playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Improved defensive coverage obviously plays a role here, but that doesn\u2019t change the fact that for the first time since PFF started charting throw accuracy a decade ago, over a quarter of all pass attempts this postseason have been deemed both inaccurate and uncatchable.\u00a0<\/p>\n This decline isn\u2019t just a byproduct of quarterbacks keeping the football out of harm\u2019s way, either. Things don\u2019t look any better on the ball security front; quarterbacks doubled the postseason interception haul from two years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 26 interceptions thrown during these playoffs are the most of any postseason in the last 17 years, albeit with two additional playoff games than the seasons prior to 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n This heavy turnover tally cannot simply be chalked up to bad turnover luck, either. The 5.1% turnover-worthy-play rate over the course of these playoffs is the second-highest of any postseason in the PFF era.\u00a0<\/p>\n Leading the way here, unsurprisingly, is Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud<\/a>. His 10 turnover-worthy plays this postseason are the second most PFF has ever recorded for one player in a playoff run, behind Carson Palmer<\/a>\u2019s 13 as the Cardinals<\/a> signal-caller a decade ago. Drake Maye<\/a> also finished with nine turnover-worthy plays.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the average playoff quarterback\u2019s tendency to put the ball in danger has been high, you shouldn\u2019t be surprised to learn that some of these risks have paid dividends during this playoff campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n Big-time throws \u2014 essentially PFF\u2019s inverse to turnover-worthy plays \u2014 are occurring at a decade-long high this postseason. The current big-time throw rate for the 2025 playoffs is 6.3%, third all-time.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 2011 postseason saw a startling 9.4% big-time throw rate and may never be ousted from the top spot, but these playoffs have proved that quarterbacks believe the payoff for completing incredible throws is well worth the incurred risk.<\/p>\n This is further proven by the 2.86-second average time-to-throw in the 2025 regular season, growing to 2.98 seconds in the postseason, which also correlates to the fairly substantial jump in average depth of target from 8.2 yards in the regular season to 9.7 yards in the postseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n Playoff quarterbacks are undoubtedly pushing the ball downfield more than we typically see from September to December, but it doesn\u2019t change the data-backed facts that they just haven\u2019t been playing well.\u00a0<\/p>\n You can argue it\u2019s due to the talent that qualified for this postseason, or more specifically, the stars who missed out. The absence of elite AFC quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes<\/a>, Lamar Jackson<\/a> and Joe Burrow<\/a> has certainly taken its toll on the standard of playoff quarterbacking.\u00a0<\/p>\n Defensive enthusiasts will sing the praises of their side of the ball, attributing this dip in offensive standard to how Mike Macdonald, DeMeco Ryans and many other creative defensive minds have managed to tilt the scales, which had been leaning in favor of quarterbacks for practically an entire decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, the statistics indicate defenses haven\u2019t necessarily punished poor quarterbacking play as much as we think. The league-wide PFF coverage grade for the 2025 postseason sits at a fairly average 59.7 \u2014 ranking 12th out of PFF\u2019s 20 postseasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 12.0% overall forced incompletion percentage ranks fourth out of the past ten postseasons; it is a significant improvement from the 9.2% observed during the regular season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Defenses have faced more drops and off-target incompletions during these playoffs than any of the previous four years, and did so even before the Seahawks and Patriots took to the field on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sure, a newfound wave of coverage ambiguity can lead to quarterbacks and receivers getting their wires crossed, leading to these mistakes, but they ultimately remain an offense-dependent metric.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The other way in which defenses can heavily impact the passing game is with their rush up front. However, defenses aren\u2019t showing any significant leaps in quality in this area either.\u00a0<\/p>\n