Exactly one week after undergoing surgery to stabilize a fractured metacarpal in his left hand, Justin Herbert played through the pain and put himself through plenty more of it in helping the Los Angeles Chargers to a dramatic 22-19 overtime victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night.

Herbert certainly didn’t have the greatest night throwing the football, completing a season-low 46.2 percent of his passes for just 139 yards with a touchdown and an interception. He also took a career-high seven sacks, one of which resulted in a fumble that ultimately led to a field goal that cut the Bolts’ lead to 10-6 late in the second quarter.

But despite some of the setbacks in the passing game, Herbert led the Chargers in rushing, running for a season-high 66 yards on 10 carries and handing out several stiff-arms with that broken left hand in the process. As one would imagine, given such a gutsy performance, the sixth-year signal-caller received all sorts of praise from coaches, teammates, fans, and pundits alike in the aftermath.

That said, however, Herbert is actually taking a bit of heat as well. But that heat has nothing to do with anything that transpired during the game. Instead, it’s stemming from how he handled his postgame interview with ESPN’s Laura Rutledge. No, seriously, this is a thing.

Justin Herbert is being criticized for his postgame interview with ESPN

Monday night’s contest, of course, concluded quite quickly when Los Angeles safety Tony Jefferson secured the 22-19 victory by intercepting Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts at the Los Angeles 1-yard line, thus ending the game immediately.

Naturally, every Chargers player, obviously including Herbert, was ecstatic and ready to celebrate such a hard-fought victory. But as Herbert made his way toward said celebration, Rutledge ran him down with the hope of getting a few words. Herbert initially tried to bypass her, saying, “I’m just trying to celebrate with my team,” but ultimately stopped to honor her request.

As one would expect from a team-first guy, Herbert opened by discussing the Los Angeles defense, which intercepted Hurts four times and also forced a fumble on a bizarre play that actually included one of those picks.

“The defense played incredible. They came up with so many big stops today. So, so proud to be able to play for those guys, and the way they compete down in, down out is really fun to watch,” Herbert said.

Rutledge asked Herbert about his hand, and clearly not wanting to put any attention on himself, he offered up a very quick response, saying, “I feel pretty good, thank you,” before quickly turning the attention back to his teammates. “Not the way we drew it up, but the battle in these guys, it’s so much fun, and I’m so honored to be a part of this team. They never quit, and it’s just fun to be a part of. We’ll watch the film, and we’ll have to get better at it and keep moving forward,” Herbert said. And that was that.

So, what exactly is the problem here?

Okay, so Herbert tried to get out of the interview at first. But as he said, all he was trying to do was celebrate a big win with his team, which he has every right to do. And for all anyone knows, he was going to come back and talk to Rutledge right after. Yet, even after agreeing to do the interview, he still takes heat because some believe his responses were too quick and that he was being rude, which is absolutely absurd.

It’s no secret that Herbert isn’t a fan of the spotlight and really doesn’t enjoy talking about himself, which is why the only short answer he gave was to the question about his hand. On the other two questions, he gave much longer responses, and all he wanted to do was praise his teammates. But that’s apparently not good enough.

Seriously, is this where we are now? Have people really run out of ways to attack Herbert for no reason, so they’re now resorting to things like this?