I’m not sure if there’s still a ban on NFL talk in the St. Louis area, so I better be careful here and not draw too much attention. But the divisional-round playoffs are my favorite weekend of the NFL season … even better than the two conference championships and the Super Bowl.
In the divisional round, there’s more action, more desperation, more teams that have a shot, more detours and a football nation of emotionally-charged fan bases …
And eight starting quarterbacks.
America is a quarterback nation, and NFL quarterbacks are scrutinized more than any position in U.S. professional sports. They are heroes or villains. They are royals and bums. They are everything … or nothing at all. They’re huge celebrities and sports-culture icons … or scrubs and guys who should go live in a van down by the river.
And in the postseason, these snap judgments are rendered after every hut-hut of the football. Win or lose in the postseason, the quarterback will be venerated in victory and degraded in defeat. And it doesn’t matter if the credit or blame is warranted.
Here’s how I’d rank the eight quarterbacks left standing in the 2025 season, and they’ll be slinging this weekend to get their teams into the conference championship round.