The kids call it glazing. NFL folk might call it Jim Harbaughing. Either way, gushing praise of Justin Herbert is generating heightened and unavoidable attention around one of football’s most gifted but divisive stars.
Herbert stepped out at SoFi Stadium as the best player on the field last weekend. He stepped off it having been out-duelled and outplayed by, with the greatest respect to him, everybody’s favourite bridge quarterback in veteran Jacoby Brissett and a transitioning Arizona Cardinals team adrift of postseason discussion.
Brissett and a valiant defensive display had guided the Cardinals to a 26-14 opening weekend victory over Herbert’s Los Angeles Chargers to pierce, but by no means burst (yet), the bubble of a team billed among the most exciting playoff contenders coming into Week One. Over-billed? Over-hyped? Time will tell.
It was the quintessential Chargers Chargering exhibition based on the discourse of recent years, a disjointed performance of mistakes and miscues negating the influence of superior individual talent. An all too familiar theme to this team.
Now, were you to drop somebody on earth for a day, ask them to watch a showreel of the NFL’s starting quarterbacks and point out which they believed might be considered the best, the most feared, the most dangerous, you would bank on an initial eye test leading many to Justin Herbert. He remains something of a dream prototype blessed with the ludicrous arm talent, the marauding ground presence, the dwarfing stature, the fizzing needle-threading velocity and deep ball fireworks – as much, though, fuels most of the frustration surrounding his career thus far.
In his most successful moments, he has been spectacular, a match for any defense in the league and one of the most box office showcases in football. There has rarely been a flicker of doubt over his skillset, but noise-meets-uncertainty over both his killer instinct and credentials among the elite play-callers in the NFL is as loud as ever, you feel.
Herbert finished Sunday’s loss 17 of 27 for 209 yards, one touchdown and an ill-informed interception while attacking double coverage downfield with 10 minutes to play and the Chargers trailing by nine. His day had started hot when he led an eight-play, 77-yard scoring drive including three passes for 60 yards to Ladd McConkey, whose exit with a chest injury after his touchdown catch before the end of the third quarter left Herbert and his offense short of answers.
In fact, the Chargers proceeded to go punt, turnover on downs, interception, turnover on downs, turnover on downs on the five possessions spent without McConkey, their offense failing to reach opposition territory in four fourth-quarter drives, while also collecting six of their team’s total penalties including five in the second half and three straight on their penultimate series.
Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert shakes hands with Cardinals quarterback Jacoby Brissett
The performance came just days after head coach Jim Harbaugh forecast Herbert going down as the best to play his position.
“Allow me to call my shot, like Babe Ruth pointing his bat over to centerfield: Justin Herbert, when it’s all said and done, when his career comes to an end, I predict he will be known as the greatest, best ever to play the position of quarterback,” Harbaugh said. “When it’s all said and done, and his career is finished, we’re going to look back and say, ‘Yep, that’s the best that ever did it.'”
Harbaugh will not and should not change who he is, having become Herbert’s most vocal and persistent cheerleader since taking over as head coach in 2024. He has repeatedly hailed his quarterback’s potential for greatness and sought to speak Herbert’s explosion into existence almost, but with it has come enlarged expectations and a Hollywood fishbowl feel. Is there such a thing as too much hype?
We might add that it is merely Week One, a prime window for premature panic. The Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots both lost in the first week of last season before going on to reach the Super Bowl, while the widely favoured Los Angeles Rams were just beaten by the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne; nobody wrote them off, nor is anybody writing them off. Seasons aren’t defined in Week One, but an unwelcome start has only prompted further question marks.
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Part of the intrigue around Herbert this season comes from the hiring of offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel, whose wizardry fell flat in a disappointing end to his Miami Dolphins head coaching tenure but has seen his arrival tipped to unlock the best of his quarterback’s alien arm. The best of McDaniel’s offense in Miami relied on Tua Tagovailoa’s quick-release passing concepts, heavy pre-snap motion and a dynamic rushing attack off which his quarterback could tee, so Herbert will be asked to stray from his comfort zone a little. Every quarterback-coordinator marriage needs time to flourish, McDaniel similarly seeking to justify his own advertising as one of the most influential offensive figureheads in modern football.
McDaniel failed to get his running game going at all through second-year back Omarion Hampton, who managed just 43 yards from 12 carries and averaged only 1.5 yards before contact behind an offensive line that surrendered three sacks. It had been an area the Chargers appeared to address efficiently over the last two seasons under Greg Roman, whose run-heavy offense restored some long-lost stability to their attack. No balance, no party.
Herbert was sacked 54 times last season, the second-most in the league, as the Chargers went without two-time Pro Bowl left tackle Rashawn Slater for the entire campaign while losing Pro Bowl right tackle Joe Alt for 11 games through injury. His 225 sacks and 615 hits entering the season marked the most on any quarterback since Herbert was drafted with the sixth overall pick in 2020. Both Slater and Alt returned this weekend, but weaknesses continued to show on the interior of the Chargers’ offensive line.
The numbers have often spoken to his ability to join the NFL’s premier quarterbacks at the table. Herbert’s 24,820 passing yards through his first six seasons are the second most in NFL history behind only Peyton Manning, whom he surpassed for the most completions by a quarterback in his first six seasons.
He also previously began his NFL career by setting the record for most consecutive 4,000-yard passing seasons with three in a row from 2020 to 2022 behind his best offensive arsenal featuring Keenan Allen, Mike Williams and Austin Ekeler. The gradual departure of the aforementioned trio hasn’t helped; McConkey, Quentin Johnston and tight end David Njoku are now his most recognised pass-catching targets.
But for all his stats through the air, the one number Chargers fans care about is playoff wins, which currently stands at zero from three postseason appearances. Herbert has fallen in the Wild Card round in three of the last four years, witnessing the Chargers blow a 27-0 lead against the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 2022 playoffs, producing a career-worst 43.8 completion percentage and four interceptions against the Houston Texans in the 2024 playoffs and throwing for just 159 yards and no touchdowns while being sacked six times against the Patriots last season.
There is something to be admired about the ability for Herbert to become one of the prized faces of the league without quite yet managing to break through the glass ceiling. For the purposes of further fuelling an AFC arm’s race brimming with quarterback talent, football is urging and willing him on to thrust himself among the perennial frontrunners, and football knows he is capable of doing so.
But games like that of Sunday should not be happening. Year seven is up and running and the Justin Herbert story remains both captivating and impossible to forecast.
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