Carson Wentz and Jared Goff took the leap in their 2nd year, but the NFL playoffs could be a rude awakening

Week 14 of the NFL season will pair two of the league’s brightest rising stars against one another. Second-year quarterbacks Jared Goff and Carson Wentz went 1-2 in last year’s draft, and after up-and-down rookie campaigns, they’ve made their teams two of the best in the NFC.

But can the Eagles and Rams rely on their young, ascendant quarterbacks when the playoffs begin? Or will January be the backdrop for some painful lessons and unhappy endings?

In the past 15 seasons, only three quarterbacks in their first two seasons as a pro have earned a start in the Super Bowl: San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick, Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger, and Seattle’s Russell Wilson. Roethlisberger and Wilson were able to lift the Lombardi Trophy after the final whistle — though if you go back an extra year to the 2001 season, you can add Tom Brady to that list. For fans in Philly or LA, they’ll need their rising stars to fill some pretty big shoes to end their teams’ respective Super Bowl droughts.

Winning with a young quarterback isn’t unheard of — it just hasn’t been common in recent years.

It’s been a long time since Brady and Roethlisberger were young guns leading their franchises to Super Bowl titles. With the exception of Wilson, each title-winning quarterback of the last decade was in at least his fifth season in the league.

The table of blossoming pro QBs in the playoffs contains its fair share of MVP candidates, but when the level of difficulty ramps up from regular season to postseason intensity, these players struggled to find their second gear. Here’s how young QBs have done in the postseason since 2012, a five-year sample size.

Bad teams don’t make it to the postseason, and the combination of a tougher schedule and the win-or-go-home setting has a significant negative effect on budding stars. These players had a 71.4 winning percentage as starters in the regular season. That drops to .481 in the playoffs. A Pro Bowl quarterback rating of 95.09 — the rough equivalent of 2017 Philip Rivers — falls to 83.18 in that same span, which approximately translates to Blake Bortles’ current season.

Wilson’s 2013 example offers some hope. The dual-threat passer was only two years removed from leading Wisconsin to the Rose Bowl when he brought the Pacific Northwest its first Super Bowl title. However, he was able to do what Roethlisberger did back in 2004 and actually improve — albeit slightly — in the playoffs in order to carry his team to the pinnacle. As shown above, his QB rating inched up from 101.2 to 101.7 in his run to the title. In ‘05, Roethlisberger moved his needle from 98.6 to 101.7. Not even a young Brady can claim that.

Of course, that season was also Wilson’s second go-round in the playoffs. He went 1-1 in leading Seattle to the NFC Divisional Round as a rookie, an experience that paved the way for his breakout sophomore season.

One thing sticks out about Wilson’s, Roethlisberger’s, and Brady’s first Super Bowl titles: they weren’t asked to be Hercules in the postseason, and a vast support network helped them push their teams over the top. Smothering defenses allowed these young QBs to be less than prolific through the air. For example:

In each of those championship seasons, Brady and Roethlisberger never accounted for more than 60 percent of their team’s total offense. That fails to mesh with a player like Luck, who was the catalyst for 72.9 percent of the Colts’ yards in their three-year stretch of 11-5 seasons, but they never advanced past the AFC Championship Game. With a still-developing QB, less is more in the playoffs.

That precedent is a mixed bag for Wentz and Goff, two players each throwing for more than 250 yards per game in 2017. Wentz’s passing has made up 65 percent of his team’s offense this fall — Goff is on the hook for approximately 72 percent of the Rams’ output. By that metric, Philadelphia is the more likely team to be able to survive a poor performance under center in a must-win game.

That’s not a harbinger of bad news, necessarily. Each franchise has built a deep network of teammates around its quarterbacks, which helps mitigate down games. The Rams have endured five games where Goff’s quarterback rating has dropped below a 90 and still managed to win two of them — though when you limit that sample size to probable playoff teams, you’ll only find a win over the Jaguars sandwiched between defeats to the Seahawks and Vikings.

The Eagles have a bit more insulation, though Wentz is just 1-2 in similar situations (QB rating < 90) with losses to Seattle and Kansas City and a win over San Francisco.

These two teams have five losses between them, and all five defeats have come in below-average performances from their quarterbacks. All but one of those (the Rams’ Week 2 loss to Washington) was against a team currently in line for playoff spot. That could spell trouble if each player goes through the typical struggle we’ve seen for young passers in the postseason over the last five years.

Wentz and Goff will also have the disadvantage of playing in the NFC, which may lack the AFC’s star power at the top but is ultimately the deeper and more challenging conference in 2017. A wild card matchup could mean facing the 2016 NFC champion Falcons and reigning MVP Matt Ryan, or 2015 NFC champion Carolina and that season’s MVP, Cam Newton.

While there are plenty of reasons to be worried, these two quarterbacks have also created optimism throughout sophomore seasons destined to end in accolades. Goff has already fended off challenges from the Saints and Jaguars, and a Week 15 showdown in Seattle could be the true indicator of his playoff readiness. Wentz emerged from an inconsistent rookie campaign to become a serious MVP candidate who is currently leading the league in touchdown passes.

Each will have the opportunity to pad his resume on Sunday when these teams meet. The question after that will be which — if either — of these players looks like he’s been cast in that Brady-Roethlisberger-Wilson mold, and which is destined to learn a difficult lesson in January.