Swanson: Justin Herbert vs. Playoffs – who you got?
EL SEGUNDO — Justin Herbert really needs a win.
Actually, maybe he doesn’t need a win. He’s talented, he takes home about $52 million a year – he’s tall. The man has a lot going for him already.
But for the sake of his résumé, his legacy, and all of our collective sanity, a first postseason feather in his cap Sunday would be great.
You’ve heard the allegations: Herbert has a big arm but he’s missing the clutch gene. That résumé is chock full of NFL records, but in the big games, he chokes.
He is, at this moment, the equivalent of the blue-and-black or gold-and-white dress – either underrated or overrated, depending on how you see things.
A win Sunday evening in the Chargers’ AFC wild-card game against Drake Maye and the New England Patriots would help clear it up, get the haters off his back and get the rest of the world to see what Chargers fans do: Justin Herbert is great.
As Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh, the NFL’s ultimate hype man, sees it: Herbert, the least-hyped-up man in the NFL, is actually “the best there ever was!”
It’s just that he’s never won in the playoffs.
And by never, we mean he hasn’t won in his two playoff appearances.
Once, in his painful postseason debut in 2023, it was because the offense couldn’t keep up or hold on after his defense collapsed and the Jacksonville Jaguars erased a 27-point lead. And then, last season, Herbert picked the worst time to have his worst game, a career-worst four-interception disaster against the Houston Texans.
So he’s 0 for 2. And two games does not make a trend. It’s not even really a streak.
It’s not as if he’s lost three consecutive playoff games.
But can you imagine?
Oh, the discourse that will ensue Monday morning if the last thing the sports-talking heads see before they go to bed Sunday evening is Herbert’s Chargers losing to the New England Patriots (14-3) in Foxborough, Mass.
It’ll be a cacophony of criticism. A tidal wave of trash talk, probably a return of that “social media quarterback” smack. Tomato, to-mah-to, blunt-force booing that will discount Herbert’s on-field heroics this season.
No attention will be paid to the fact that without his efforts, the 11-5 Chargers wouldn’t even have sniffed the postseason.
No, the discussion won’t be about how the laser-throwing, cliché-wielding, team player completed 340 of 512 passes (66.4%) for 3,727 yards and 26 touchdowns – despite playing all season without left tackle Rashawn Slater, his blind-side protector who went down with a knee injury in training camp in August. Despite having to play most of the schedule without top right tackle Joe Alt, victim of an season-ending ankle injury on Nov. 2.
Despite the Chargers having had to rotate through 25 five-man offensive line combinations.
It won’t be about how Herbert took 129 hits, which is, according to The Athletic, the second-highest single-season total in TruMedia’s database, going back to 2000. Or how he sustained a broken hand, had surgery and returned to play seven days later.
The peanut gallery won’t crunch these numbers: Herbert was sacked 54 times, hit on 21% of his 615 dropbacks and pressured on 42.8% of them, and that he subsequently scrambled for a career-high 439 yards.
Whatever happens Sunday, Herbert’s season has been wildly impressive, maybe even his best yet, considering all he’s been able to endure, but …
Our greats aren’t measured by regular-season success. They’re measured by majors, where they place on the podium, championships. The ring’s the thing. Not that Herbert, in his weekly chat with reporters, was going there: “Uh, no. We just think about winning each game, doing our job and studying, practicing and preparing.”
But for as much pressure as Herbert has faced all season, what we’re all waiting to see is how he deals with playoff pressure this time.
As tough a dude as he’s proven to be playing again through injury, we’re on pins and needles awaiting a verdict in this case. Will Herbert prove, without a reasonable doubt, that he has the mettle to – as Harbaugh likes to say – have his best when his best is needed?
Whether Herbert, the Chargers’ strong, silent QB, is built for this, the best time of the season, when things move the fastest and get the loudest and matter the most.
This is one of those high-stakes, win-and-keep-playing, lose-and-go-home games that our greatest competitors live for. This is the type of experience that gets passed down through generations with accounts like Harbaugh’s: “This game’s gonna start like nothin’ you’ve ever seen! There’s going to be bodies flying around, like with their hair on fire, hit somebody! Hit somebody! Whoever’s moving! Ask questions later! … it’s like the coolest chaos of football, right from opening kickoff.”
This is, to Herbert, just another ballgame: “We treat every game like a playoff game.”
I actually hope he does treat his third playoff experience like a regular-season game. Those have been going better for him.
It won’t be the same, of course. Not really.
But we don’t have to tell Herbert.