Bolts From The Blue
Justin Herbert’s defenses with the Chargers have been atrocious since 2020, averaging a total rank of 28th in the NFL.
There’s a terrible narrative that has unfortunately followed Justin Herbert through the first four years of his career in the NFL. It’s this idea that he’s somehow actually NOT that good and his passing stats are simply overblown for a guy who doesn’t win much at all.
It’s one of the more infuriating falsities around the league.
Those who aren’t casual fans of the NFL, and especially those who have watched every game of Herbert’s since he entered the league, know just how much he’s been let down by the guys on the other side of the ball and those coaching said unit.
His former teammate in Chris Harris Jr., a member of several recent defenses for the Chargers, recently went on the Up & Adams Show with Kay Adams to discuss this topic and other adjacent points. Harris echoed the sentiment that Herbert has never had a good to great defense. He would know. He was unfortunately on the field when they allowed quite a few points and was even the author of some massive game-shifting defensive lapses!
So on Friday’s edition of Up & Adams, Kay brought up this extremely illuminating graphic showing the career average defensive rank for the Chargers during Herbert’s four seasons lined up next to the career defensive ranks for seven other top current or retired quarterbacks.
As you can PLAINLY see, it’s not even comparable. Tom Brady? First. Lamar Jackson? Also first. Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes? Second and seventh, respectively. The only real semi-outlier aside from Herbert is Joe Burrow and the Bengals’ rank of 14th since 2020, but that is still FOURTEEN(!) spots higher than the Chargers at 28th over the past four seasons.
Like...this has got to stop.
There are a zillion legitimate, objectively real arguments and statistics out there showing just how unfair it’s been for Herbert as a starting quarterback when it comes to his career success juxtaposed to that of his peers. Justin, himself, would tell you he could be better in a number of areas. We’ve seen him throw an ill-advised pass on multiple occasions or take a bad sack here or there. We’ve seen the bad plays, but let’s not pretend those are anywhere near more prevalent than the lightning-in-a-bottle sequences we’ve seen over the years.
Here’s my one qualm about this year, however: The Chargers defense could easily be a much better unit in 2024 with the coaching of both Harbaugh and Jesse Minter. However, with the offense now without Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, and Austin Ekeler, there’s a real possibility this unit ranks much lower than what we’ve come to expect. So unfortunately, there’s a chance the defense becomes a top-15 unit but the offense isn’t quite where it needs to be and the team falls short of the postseason. If that’s the case, it would only open up another can of worms...
