As the Los Angeles Chargers head into their Week 5 bye week, this break in action is coming at the absolute perfect time. After two-straight wins that started both the season and the Jim Harbaugh era off on the right foot, the Chargers have since been bit by the injury bug and lost a pair of games to the Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs.
Sunday's loss to the back-to-back Super Bowl champs, which was as hard-fought as you'd expect it to be from a Jim-Harbaugh-coached team, highlighted the biggest problem that the Chargers face as they enter their bye week: Justin Herbert, who has been dealing with a right ankle sprain, was battered once again.
This week, he was playing behind an offensive line that was missing both of their starting tackles, Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt.
After the game, Jim Harbaugh spoke at length about the problems that the Chargers offensive line is having while also praising Justin Herbert for his “warrior-like” ability to take a beating and continue making otherworldly throws.
“We've got to get Justin another half-second, second. We really do,” Harbaugh said, according to Kris Rhim of ESPN.com. “I mean, he's trying to get the ball out as fast as he possibly can, and he is. And like I said, some of those throws that he made, I mean, I don't have the adjective for it.
“It's warrior-like; it's everything within his human power, and then some, is the way I look at it. It's incredible what he can do. We do need to get him more [time], just another second.”
Justin Herbert was sacked twice and pressured on 12 of his 27 dropbacks, but the problems with the Chargers' offensive line don't end with allowing the Chiefs to turn Herbert into a piñata. The Bolts offensive line also committed four false-start penalties, unacceptable in just about any situation, but particularly egregious when playing at home.
Justin Herbert preaching patience amidst Chargers struggles
Justin Herbert has every right to be frustrated with how the last two weeks have played out, and on Sunday afternoon, he was caught on camera expressing his frustration on the Chargers sideline. However, when it came time to talk to the media after the game, Herbert said all of the right things.
“We've got to stay patient. We've got to hold our water and understand that the cadence, we have to use that as a weapon,” Herbert said. “This front seven that we were going against, we felt like it was important to be able to hold them off, whether it's switching up the cadence, different cadences, and unfortunately, we had too many penalties.”
Although Herbert has been sacked just six times this season, his sack percentage (6.19%) is higher than it has been at any point in his career. Then there's the issue of how drastic of a stylistic change Herbert has had to make from the first four seasons of his career to this season.
During his first four NFL seasons, Herbert threw for 277 yards on just over 39 pass attempts per game. This season, he's down to 144 yards per game on just 22.8 attempts, which is a product of an offensive line that is in flux, a philosophical overhaul under Jim Harbaugh, and a league that suddenly isn't passing the ball with the proficiency it once did.
Consider that this season, only four quarterbacks are throwing for over 250 yards per game. Just five years ago, that number was up to 16.
Thus far, Justin Herbert has been a good soldier and continues to stand in the line of fire even as his offensive line has been decimated. But make no mistake, Herbert will surely be pleased to have a week away from this battle.
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