NFL playoffs: Meet the 14 QBs who didn't get their coaches fired — for now

Kevin O'Connell fell short of reaching the NFL's Super Wild-Card Weekend, but he sure is rising on the NFL's list of Coaches Who Have Not Been Fired … For Now.

The Vikings hired O'Connell into this 32-person fraternity 23 months ago. Today, he's the NFL's 17^th-longest-tenured coach.

That's how quickly things happen in a league that now has decided to change coaches 42 times since 2019, including eight this year.

As young KO is learning all too well, staying on the longevity list requires one of two things: 1. Finding the right situation at quarterback, or 2. Finding a way to win without the right situation at quarterback.

The first one is difficult. The second one is darn near impossible because, well, it's tough being a genius — or even the G.O.A.T. — without the right situation at quarterback.

Ask Bill Belichick. The only difference between his dismissal after four Tom Brady-free seasons and everyone else's is Bill got to announce his firing as a "mutual decision." Yeah, right.

Saturday starts the NFL's 12-game, 33-day postseason festival en route to the Super Bowl LVIII champion being crowned Feb. 11 in Las Vegas. The 14 qualifiers have 14 different situations at quarterback — some of them healthy for years to come, some of them stopgaps and some of them Band-Aids that teams are hoping stick for another 33 days.

There also are four new division winners: Lions, Cowboys, Ravens and Texans. Houston went from worst to first in the AFC South, making it 19 of the past 21 years with at least one worst-to-first division winner.

The different paths to the right quarterback are no more starkly displayed than what's sitting atop each conference in Baltimore and San Francisco, which have byes this week.

Baltimore's Lamar Jackson is a former first-round pick, 32^nd overall in 2018. He's the third-highest-paid player in NFL history at $52 million a year.

San Francisco's Brock Purdy was the last pick of the last round in 2022. He's the 91^st-highest-paid quarterback of 2023. His average salary of $934,252 ranks 11 notches below Vikings third-stringer Jaren Hall ($1,029,818).

Six of the 14 playoff quarterbacks were drafted in the first round by their current team. Besides the 27-year-old Jackson, there's 28-year-old Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City (10^th, 2017), 27-year-old Josh Allen in Buffalo (seventh, 2018) and three guys making their playoff starting debuts: 25-year-old Tua Tagovailoa in Miami (fifth, 2020), 25-year-old Jordan Love in Green Bay (26^th, 2020) and 22-year-old rookie C.J. Stroud in Houston (second, 2023).

Stroud took another route. He and his coach, DeMeco Ryans, leaped into the fray together from Day 1. The result was a seven-win improvement and the distinction of being the first coach and quarterback of the Super Bowl era to reach the playoffs together as rookies.

The playoffs start Saturday afternoon at Houston. Standing opposite of Stroud is Cleveland's Joe Flacco, who turns 39 next week and was out of the league before the Browns needed a fourth starting quarterback to make it through their season.

Flacco went 4-1. What he and the Browns did — posting 11 wins with a league-high 37 turnovers and four quarterbacks starting multiple games — nullifies the primary excuses being made for the Vikings' league-worst six-game slide to end this season.

Two of the 14 playoff quarterbacks were acquired via trade — for each other. The Rams' Super Bowl champion Matthew Stafford returns to Detroit on Sunday night to face Jared Goff, who's trying to post the Lions' first playoff win since Jan. 5, 1992.

The Eagles' Jalen Hurts (second round), Pittsburgh's Mason Rudolph (third) and the Cowboys' Dak Prescott (fourth) also were drafted by their current teams.

Rudolph travels to Buffalo for a battle between teams that fired their offensive coordinators during the season. The Bills' Allen, a $43-million-a-year superstar, won five straight as Buffalo clinched its division. Meanwhile, Rudolph is making $1 million in the last year of his contract and was a backup until starting and winning the last three games to help Mike Tomlin reach the playoffs and become the league's longest-tenured head coach.

You'd think Tomlin would be safe. He hasn't had a losing season in 17 years as Steelers coach. He's won a Lombardi Trophy. And his employer has had only three head coaches since 1969.