{"id":162285,"date":"2025-06-27T09:52:22","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T09:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/162285\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T09:52:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T09:52:22","slug":"why-justin-herbert-is-ready-to-lead-the-chargers-into-the-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/162285\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Justin Herbert is Ready to Lead the Chargers Into the Playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dig a little deeper and you&#8217;ll see that Herbert has especially thrived on play-action passes this season.<\/p>\n<p>According to Pro Football Focus, Herbert posted a 96.0 grade on play-action passes this season, easily the highest mark by a quarterback in the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>PFF charted Herbert as having 194 play-action dropbacks in 2024, the second-most in the league. He completed 121 of 162 passes (74.7 percent) for 1,617 yards with eight touchdowns and just two interceptions on such throws.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve done a great job of marrying the run and the pass game and making things look similar,&#8221; Herbert said. &#8220;I think that&#8217;s where Coach Roman has done such a great job of putting the two together.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Having the threat of being able to run the ball out of a certain set and throw the ball out of the same set, it&#8217;s tough on defenses,&#8221; Herbert added. &#8220;Especially the guys that we have coming out of the backfield, the offensive line getting up after the D-Line, everyone goes into it \u2026 then great routes as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Harbaugh has raved about Herbert&#8217;s performance all season and did so again Tuesday morning, comparing Herbert to Johhny Unitas and Joe Montana while also likening Herbert&#8217;s footwork in the pocket to &#8220;Dancing With The Stars.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s an artist. It&#8217;s artistry,&#8221; Harbaugh said Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Herbert had six games of at least 280 passing yards in the regular season, including each of the final three games of the year.<\/p>\n<p>He finished the 2024 season with 3,870 passing yards with 23 touchdowns and just three interceptions.<\/p>\n<p>Among quarterbacks with at least 15 touchdown passes in a season, Herbert&#8217;s 23:3 TD-INT ratio (7.67) ranks eighth all-time in NFL history.<\/p>\n<p>Now Herbert, who is 0-1 in his playoff career, will turn his attention to the playoffs as the Bolts look to make a deep postseason run.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think adversity is a great teacher. We&#8217;ve seen our fair share of it, having gone through the tight games, the close ones, the tough losses,&#8221; Herbert said. &#8220;We&#8217;re better because of it. We&#8217;ve watched the film, we&#8217;ve done everything we can to correct those mistakes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Harbaugh said Tuesday he wouldn&#8217;t want anyone else leading the Chargers into the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Who wouldn&#8217;t appreciate him more than his teammates and his coach? I would think probably I&#8217;m sure respected and maybe even feared,&#8221; Harbaugh said. &#8220;I know I would. Nobody can appreciate him as much [as us]. But I can&#8217;t imagine he&#8217;s not highly respected by all.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dig a little deeper and you&#8217;ll see that Herbert has especially thrived on play-action passes this season. According&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2056],"tags":[37,7,34,38,221,253,2368,1159,6,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-162285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-app-homepage","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-homepage-cp","11":"tag-homepage-headlines","12":"tag-houston","13":"tag-houston-texans","14":"tag-houstontexans","15":"tag-justin-herbert","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114754718717664686","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}