Despite his record as a starter, Herbert is the real deal
by Steve Risser
On Thursday night, the Chargers beat the Raiders 30 to 27 in OT. Quarterback Justin Herbert had a big game going 22 for 32 throwing for 314 yards and had 3 total TD’s 2 passing one rushing and the rushing TD was on the drive to win the game. Herbert is 4–9 as a starter, but he has clearly shown this year that he’s going to be the Chargers franchise QB for years to come. Herbert is right there with Justin Jefferson as the leading candidate for offensive rookie of the year. He has 27 TD’s and 10 INT’s, and has a passer rating of 96.3. He’s got all the tools to be a great QB; he’s 6–6 236, he’s got a really good arm, he’s mobile, can extend plays and he’s accurate. There are 4 reasons why his record has a starter that isn’t good. One is on him and the other 3 are outside circumstances. Yes, I admit Hebert has played like a rookie at times. One prime example of that is in the week 8 loss to Denver when the Chargers were up 24–10 late in the 3rd quarter, he threw an awful pick on 3rd down and that completely turned the game around. He also looked like a rookie in the Chargers losses to the Pats and Dolphins. Anthony Lynn got off to a really good start as Chargers head coach going 12–4 and 9–7 in his first 2 years, but he went 5–11 last year and this year he’s definitely responsible for the Hebert not winning as many games as he should. A big reason for that has been bad in game decisions that he’s made. In week 2 in Herbert’s first start, he didn’t go for it on 4th and 1 at his own 34 in OT and choose to give ball to Patrick Mahomes and we all know what happens when you do that. All he needs to do is a get a Field Goal to win. Another bad decision was in the game against Tom Brady and the Bucs, where the Chargers had a 24–7 with under a min to go in the first half and instead of running out the clock which the Chargers could have easily done seeing that the Bucs only had one timeout left but they choose to hand the ball off to Joshua Kelly. He fumbles the Bucs score a TD and the game changed completely. The decision that Lynn received criticism nationally was late in the Bills game after Herbert converted a 4th and 27, down ten the Chargers ran the ball with 20 seconds left with no timeouts which gave them no time to recover an onside kick to try to tie the game, if they scored there. Special teams has also been a big reason why the Chargers haven’t had success this year. Kicker Michael Bagley has missed league leading 9 field goals and missed a game winner against the Saints. Also, in the game against the Pats, the poor special teams resulted in 14 points and of course, they missed a FG as well. Lastly, the Defense hasn’t played well and they haven’t stayed heathy. On defense, they’ve giving up almost 28 points a game, but the big reason for that is they’ve been banged up. Their all pro safety Derwin James has been hurt all year and Melvin Ingram has missed half the season due to injury. It’s obvious the Chargers won’t make the playoffs this year but they have found their guy in Justin Herbert.
Steve co-hosts a weekly podcast called Sports Talk with R & J. It airs Wednesday’s at 2pm with Clovercrest Media Group. You can learn more about it here:
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