With excuses running out, its time for Justin Herbert to change the narrative
As Justin Herbert continues to build his résumé as one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks, a painful, unavoidable truth has emerged.When the Chargers have needed nothing less than the very best Herbert has to offer, he has fallen woefully short.A quarterback whom the football gods have blessed with size, strength, athletic ability, a powerful, accurate throwing arm, and a mind as astute as any in the NFL has led the Chargers to just three playoff appearances in seven seasons.His record in those games is 0–3.He’s completed just 54.7% of his passes.
He’s been intercepted four times to just two touchdowns, and his passer rating is 64.7.To put that in perspective, he’s completed 66.5% of his 3,438 regular-season passes and has 163 touchdowns to 58 interceptions.His career passer rating is 96.3.There is no sugarcoating it.
And no reasonable fan or football observer can justify or explain it away.For some inexplicable reason, Herbert has completely fallen apart in his moments of truth.When the NFL’s very best quarterbacks hoist their teams onto their shoulders, Herbert has done the complete opposite.He’s let his team down.Not once.Not twice.But three times.That is a pattern.An ugly one at that.With the excuses running out, it’s time for Herbert to change that narrative.He can’t do anything about all that now.
It’s June, after all, not January.But clearly, some groundwork has been laid throughout the Chargers’ offseason that they believe will put Herbert in a better position to play his best football in the playoffs rather than his worst.Or they hope, anyway.“It’s just about working, doing everything we can now to be prepared for those elimination games,” Herbert said.The starting point, quite literally, is his feet.
That, and a workload management plan that significantly reduced the number of throws Herbert attempted this offseason, including their three-day minicamp this week.All of which is the brainchild of Mike McDaniel, the fourth offens...