Justin Herbert lights up Chargers defense, zero room for excuses any longer

SAN DIEGO –  The imagination runs wild when Justin Herbert starts cooking like he did Tuesday at Chargers training camp.The ball jumps out of his hand – quick, effortless, precise – dropping into receivers’ arms for chunk gains and touchdowns.It’s not just the arm talent; it’s the rhythm, the timing, the command of it all. Herbert isn’t just delivering passes; he’s dictating terms.“He’s throwing guys open,” marveled Chargers safety Derwin James, whose first-team secondary got picked apart so thoroughly Tuesday that James and defensive pass game coordinator Steve Clinkscale had to light into the group on the sideline.“We know our standards,” James said.Herbert had no interest in them.

No matter what James and his unit tried, he kept slicing them up, over and over, with answers for everything.In those stretches, the offense doesn’t just feel efficient, it feels inevitable.Pro Bowls.MVPs.

Super Bowls.When Herbert looks like that, it’s easy to see the path, and to believe it’s all within reach.Only for everything to shift in a completely different direction, almost in the blink of an eye.First, left tackle Rashawn Slater left the field for the medical tent with an undisclosed injury.Slater emerged a few minutes later, but the Chargers kept him on the sideline for the remainder of practice.Whatever Slater was dealing with did not appear serious.

Herbert said he briefly spoke with the veteran tackle, and the indication was that Slater wanted to return.But the Chargers chose caution, unwilling to tempt fate after losing Slater for the season following the patellar tendon injury he suffered in last year’s training camp.Then came a sequence that served as an equally jarring reminder of how quickly things can change.

Herbert overthrew a wide-open receiver on one play, then threw an interception on the very next snap.The Slater scare and Herbert’s sudden misfire were reminders of the Chargers’ reality over the last few years: a team ...