EL SEGUNDO, Calif. \u2014 With one game left in the regular season, the Chargers will get a brief glimpse of life without Justin Herbert.<\/p>\n
Herbert won\u2019t suit up Sunday as Trey Lance is set to start the finale, a calculated pause designed to protect the franchise quarterback as he prepares for the Wild Card round the following weekend. It\u2019s a rare quiet moment for Herbert after a season defined by endurance, toughness, and leadership \u2014 the kind that doesn\u2019t always show up on a stat sheet but is felt throughout an entire building.<\/p>\n
Simply put, the Chargers are not in this position without him.<\/p>\n
Herbert spent the year navigating an offensive line that seemed to reshuffle weekly, skill players who cycled in and out of the lineup, and a schedule that offered little margin for error. Yet the result is an 11\u20135 record and a playoff berth \u2014 something that felt far from guaranteed at several points along the way.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Chargers offensive coordinator Greg Roman didn\u2019t hesitate when asked how he views Herbert\u2019s season.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, it was an MVP season with all the attrition we had and what he\u2019s been able to do to lead the team to a playoff berth,\u201d Roman said.<\/p>\n
Roman continued to give Herbert his flowers, emphasizing not just the physical traits, but the mental resilience that defined the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust the way he has gutted through and found a way and will it to victory,\u201d Roman said. \u201cHis ability to navigate through that with a steel mind and not blink, not for one second\u2026 It\u2019s a career-defining type of year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those words carry weight coming from a coach who has seen plenty of quarterbacks. Herbert didn\u2019t just survive the chaos \u2014 he stabilized it. Every week, no matter the circumstances, the Chargers believed they had a chance because No. 10 was under center.<\/p>\n
While Herbert has been the engine, he hasn\u2019t been alone in his growth. Left guard Zion Johnson quietly put together a breakout season of his own, becoming a tone-setter up front.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s marked,\u201d Roman said of Johnson\u2019s improvement. \u201cHe just exudes energy \u2014 he\u2019s like the energizer bunny. All that devotion on his part has paid off. I think he\u2019s playing the best football of his career.\u201d<\/p>\n
That progress hasn\u2019t always been linear for the offense, and Roman was candid about his own role in the team\u2019s slow start against Houston last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI gotta do a better job there,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI might\u2019ve done some things differently. I felt like we were kinda tripping over ourselves early in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chargers corrected those issues \u2014 and that\u2019s been the story of the second half of the season.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Coming out of the bye week, the team rattled off four straight wins, something defensive coordinator Jesse Minter pointed out Thursday morning at The Bolt. Around the league, few believed the Chargers could pull it off. Inside the locker room, there was no doubt.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the BYE week, I don\u2019t think a lot of people saw us winning the next four games,\u201d Minter said. \u201cWe\u2019ve proven to ourselves that we can play really well against anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
That belief was amplified last week at SoFi Stadium. For the first time since the Chargers moved in, it truly felt like a home-field advantage \u2014 a sea of powder blue that drowned out the opposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat showing by the fans,\u201d he said. \u201cThe guys felt the momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
That energy translated directly to the field, fueling a dominant second-half defensive performance and reinforcing the sense that something has shifted with this team \u2014 not just in wins and losses, but in identity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Now, with one more practice remaining before the regular season comes to a close, the Chargers will take the field Sunday with Trey Lance at quarterback and their eyes firmly on what comes next. By Sunday night, they\u2019ll know who they\u2019ll face in the Wild Card round.<\/p>\n
Justin Herbert will be watching, resting, and preparing \u2014 exactly where the Chargers want him as they head into January, built on a season that proved just how valuable he truly is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL SEGUNDO, Calif. \u2014 With one game left in the regular season, the Chargers will get a brief…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2064],"tags":[241,7,1159,1014,262,2444,2443,88,6,14179,8402],"class_list":{"0":"post-647051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-chargers","8":"tag-chargers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-justin-herbert","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","13":"tag-losangeles","14":"tag-losangeleschargers","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-tst-los-angeles","18":"tag-zion-johnson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115823220329682210","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647051","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=647051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}