Over the last few weeks, slandering Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert has become an unfortunate cottage sub-industry that tells us a lot about what’s wrong with the business of sports talk disguised as analysis. Those who have decided that Herbert has not unlocked that mythical “next level” required of all “elite” quarterbacks would like us to know that they have gone beyond the highlight plays, and revealed the soft underbelly that tells us the truth.
At that moment, their analysis is not about Justin Herbert at all — it’s all about the guy making noise. When Emmanuel Acho insists that Herbert is just a “social media quarterback” (i.e., capable of a few highlight plays, and a whole bunch of meh around them), and when other, more respected analysts charry-pick stats without the benefit of tape to ostensibly bring us a deeper, greater, truth? You are now watching the World Series of Woolgathering, as opposed to anything relevant or true. Acho has now recorded a “Social Media Freestyle” to triple down on his alleged analysis… so again, this is just a few people attaching themselves to Herbert as if they were pilot fish. This isn’t legitimate analysis.
Even if you want to perform a mea culpa now, it’s still going to be all about you. Justin Herbert is your innocent bystander.
If we want to get into the reality of where Herbert is at this point in his career, well, let’s do that. Because the evidence is pretty clear that Herbert, in his third NFL season, is playing the position about as well as anybody could in his circumstances. Other top-tier quarterbacks (and yes, Herbert is just that) have receivers who can gain separation. They have offensive lines that are at least functional, for the most part. They have offensive play-callers who aren’t actively working against their attributes.
Right now, Herbert has none of those things. But he is still the quarterback you want — the quarterback you win because of, not the one you win with or in spite of. He is transcendent, because he keeps transcending all the little disasters around him, and if you can’t see that (probably because you’re not looking on purpose), I don’t know what to tell you.
With that, let’s take ourselves out of the equation, and take a good look at where Justin Herbert is right now. Stats and tape and nothing else.
We promise.
Refusing to give Herbert the benefit of the doubt.
Someone is refusing to give Herbert the benefit of the doubt, and we’re not talking about the outside naysayers. We are talking about Chargers offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi. He is the grandson of Vince Lombardi, who had a more expansive passing game with the Green Bay Packers of the 1960s than his grandson has constructed in the Year of Our Lord 2022.
Our own Laurie Fitzpatrick got into this in November, and it all rings true as we speed past Thanksgiving into the year-end holidays. Laurie called what the Chargers are doing “a reductive West Coast offense with a gunslinger at quarterback,” and I couldn’t put it any more perfectly. In a general sense, Lombardi is more about the elimination of bad plays than the creation of explosive plays, and there’s only so far you’re ever going to get with that.
Coming into Week 14 though, Herbert had bailed his OC out in the most grievous of situations. When facing third- or fourth-and 10 or more, Herbert had completed a league-high 10 passes of 10 or more air yards on a league-high 19 attempts for 254 yards (only Patrick Mahomes had more), a league-high 218 air yards, one touchdown, and a passer rating of 115.6.
Herbert had two such situations against the Dolphins on Sunday night, and he converted one of them. The conversion was this 18-yard throw (18 air yards) to Josh Palmer on third-and-10 with 1:24 left in the first half.
The near-conversion was this 15-yard throw to Palmer on third-and-17 with 9:57 left in the third quarter. Palmer curled his route in before the sticks, and that was that. Could Herbert have taken the deeper shot to DeAndre Carter on the deep over from left to right? Perhaps, if pressure hadn’t forced Herbert to move to his right. Most likely, Herbert didn’t see the deep over at all. The route facing him stopped short of the sticks, and we see that too often.
Through Week 13, no quarterback in the NFL had more attempts that didn’t travel past the sticks than Herbert’s 330. He also led the NFL in completions that didn’t travel past the sticks with 285. The second- and third-most prolific throwers this season avoiding the sticks have been Tom Brady (279 completions short of the sticks) and Matt Ryan (227). Mahomes ranks fourth in completions short of the sticks with 220.
But Mahomes also has a league-high 12 touchdowns and just two interceptions on such throws (compared to Herbert’s four touchdowns and three interceptions) in part because Mahomes’ passing game is designed to win after the catch. Herbert’s passing game isn’t really designed to do anything. He has to play beyond and outside of the structure he’s given, and the extent to which he’s able to do that is a bold check mark in his favor, and a bold black mark for the Chargers’ coaching staff.
Receivers without separation.
Per Next Gen Stats, Herbert’s receivers are not going to consistently gain separation on their own.
- Keenan Allen ranks 13th in the league with 3.8 average yards of separation per target. He leads the team.
- Josh Palmer has averaged 3.4 yards of separation per target.
- DeAndre Carter has averaged 3.2 yards of separation per target.
- Gerald Everett has averaged 3.1 yards of separation per target.
- Mike Williams has averaged 2.6 yards of separation per target.
The average yards of separation per target for the entire NFL this season is 3.0 — so, at best, Herbert is dealing with a just above average baseline group of targets when it comes to getting open of their own accord.
Here’s another time where Herbert had to bail everybody out in a situation that would have been impossible for the vast majority of NFL quarterbacks. This is against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 13. The Chargers had fourth-and-12 at the Las Vegas 35-yard line. There was 8:44 left in the fourth quarter, and the Chargers were down, 27-12. Basically, if Herbert doesn’t do something ridiculous here, it’s Game Over. Hebert threw what might have been the pass of the season to Keenan Allen for a 35-yard touchdown, and watch how Allen ran his vertical route from the right outside slot.
Allen is going up against cornerback Amik Robertson, and at no point does he have discernible separation. Herbert has to move around in the pocket and then roll right, just waiting for somebody to get open somehow. Eventually, he just says, “Bleep it,” and throws the most preposterous ball — this is 37 air yards to a place where only Allen can catch it, with Robertson all over him.
Now, let’s go back to Week 10 against the San Francisco 49ers’ great defense. Herbert had a number of big-time throws in the Chargers’ 22-16 loss, but this one really stood out. The Chargers ran a pick/wheel concept on the left side, and Palmer was the guy who had to hit the wheel when everything else was gummed up. When he did that, both cornerback Charvarius Ward and safety Talanoa Hufanga were able to catch up to Palmer.
Herbert had third-and-4 in the first quarter from his own 19-yard line, against what may be the NFL’s best pass defense. And his response was to place this ball with perfect timing and location, with pressure in his face, against his body, for a 25-yard gain.
If you don’t think this is good quarterback play, it’s possible that you and I are watching different sports.
Thriving under pressure.
When you are a quarterback dealing with mostly unimaginative route concepts, an injury-plagued offensive line, and receivers who can’t consistently separate, you know what happens? You face a lot of pressure. This season, Herbert has the NFL’s most dropbacks (207), most attempts (170), and most completions (94) under duress. He’s thrown for 933 yards, 5.5 yards per attempt, five touchdowns, and four interceptions under pressure, which tells you that the dominant response is to check it down.
That said, there are times when Herbert will cork one off under pressure, and you just wonder how you were lucky enough to witness it. This throw to Mike Williams with 5:40 left in the third quarter of the Dolphins game is Mozart as it should be played — and a throw not many quarterbacks could (or would dare to) make.
You have got to be @#$%ing kidding me. pic.twitter.com/5gTRM0S7Yr
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) December 12, 2022
Rolling right, across your body, 39 yards in the air, a perfectly-timed rope. If that’s a social media quarterback, sign me up.
The big play was all Herbert. Williams benefited from this to an interesting degree.
Mike Williams aligned across from Xavien Howard on 32 of his 39 routes (82% shadow).
Williams had 3 receptions for 97 yards with Howard as the nearest defender, all three of which came on vertical routes vs a single-high coverage shell.#MIAvsLAC | #BoltUp pic.twitter.com/MHgBd01nvP
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) December 12, 2022
We need to elevate the discussion.
Mythbusting is valuable in any kind of analysis. If you see a wave of opinion heading in one direction, and you have irrefutable evidence that the wave is wrong, that’s an important addition to the discussion. What is not an important addition to the discussion is the practice of cherry-picking a pre-determined argument you’re making to get eyes on your work, right or wrong.
That’s not analysis. It’s yelling, disguised as junk science.
In the case of Justin Herbert, and the sudden need to take him down a few pegs, there is the player, there are the players around him, there is the scheme, and there is what actually happens on the field. Herbert has made the very best of circumstances that would take most quarterbacks down, and he’s made plays that most other quarterbacks couldn’t make. If the idea here is to denigrate him for the inconsistencies in his play without considering the ancillary factors that play into those inconsistencies, what are we doing here?
There will always be screamers who are paid to be loud as opposed to being right. That’s an unfortunate inevitability in any industry. But taking that curse and bending it into the guise of actual analysis cheapens the work done by others who are trying to get it right in an honest fashion. It reduces the effective impact of actual tape and analytical study, and that’s a dangerous thing when we already have a fairly massive misunderstanding and mistrust in and around the NFL when it comes to what analytics actually mean, and where they’re valuable.
More than ever, with more tools at our disposal than ever, we should endeavor to get it right, the right way.
