{"id":288328,"date":"2025-08-14T20:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T20:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/288328\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T20:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T20:40:10","slug":"justin-herbert-will-start-at-qb-make-preseason-debut-saturday-vs-rams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/288328\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Herbert Will Start at QB, Make Preseason Debut Saturday vs. Rams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Are you ready for <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chargers.com\/team\/players-roster\/justin-herbert\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Justin Herbert&#8217;s<\/a> preseason debut?<\/p>\n<p>The Bolts quarterback will start Saturday&#8217;s preseason game against the Rams, Chargers Head Coach Jim Harbaugh said Thursday morning, which means Herbert is in line to make his first-ever preseason appearance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re going to play starters on Saturday,&#8221; Harbaugh said.<\/p>\n<p>Harbaugh said Thursday that Herbert is expected to play &#8220;a series, could be two,&#8221; along with other offensive starters.<\/p>\n<p>Harbaugh added that defensive starters will play, too, with the exception of Derwin James, Jr. and Khalil Mack. Players who are working through something physically are also unlikely to play.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All the offensive starters are going to play,&#8221; Harbaugh said. &#8220;Defensively, same. I&#8217;m going to hold K-Mack and Derwin back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He later added: &#8220;Our guys want to play. They want the first series of the season not to be the first series of the season.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Herbert was a 2020 first-round pick but the NFL didn&#8217;t have a preseason that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Herbert then didn&#8217;t dress for any exhibition games from 2021 to 2023, and didn&#8217;t play last season \u2014 Harbaugh&#8217;s first year in charge \u2014 because he was dealing with an injury to the plantar fascia in his right foot.<\/p>\n<p>But Herbert will be out there Saturday at SoFi Stadium where the Chargers will be the road team against the Rams. <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chargers.com\/news\/rams-how-to-watch-preseason-081625\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kickoff between the Los Angeles teams<\/a> is at 4 p.m (PT).<\/p>\n<p>Trey Lance started the 2025 Hall of Fame Game before Taylor Heinicke got the starting nod last weekend against the Saints.<\/p>\n<p>Harbaugh said he expects both Lance and Heinicke to also play Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are you ready for Justin Herbert&#8217;s preseason debut? The Bolts quarterback will start Saturday&#8217;s preseason game against the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[23699,44577,55277,37,7,34,38,1159,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-288328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-2025-training-camp","9":"tag-2025-training-camp-news","10":"tag-2025-pre-2-preview-editorial","11":"tag-app-homepage","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-homepage-cp","14":"tag-homepage-headlines","15":"tag-justin-herbert","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115029057660247449","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288328","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=288328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}