{"id":676555,"date":"2026-01-14T12:38:34","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T12:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/676555\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T12:38:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T12:38:34","slug":"lets-stop-piling-on-justin-herbert-and-look-at-chargers-collective-bad-luck-and-failures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/676555\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s stop piling on Justin Herbert and look at Chargers’ collective bad luck and failures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another year, another playoff disappointment for a franchise that seems to have an abundance of them. The Los Angeles Chargers<\/a>\u2019 season came to an ugly end in the wild-card round, losing 16-3 in a meager performance against a New England Patriots team<\/a> that wasn\u2019t playing their best football either.<\/p>\n

Every problem that hampered the Chargers this season came to full display alongside a mediocre performance from star quarterback Justin Herbert<\/a> as they limped their way to another dispiriting end in the playoffs. As the quarterback and face of the team, Herbert will draw the ire of many talking heads who pin everything on him. The truth is this is a failing that encompasses just about everyone involved and will require a real look in the mirror this offseason<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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[Get more Chargers news: L.A. team feed<\/a>]<\/p>\n

One area the Chargers have been consistently plagued by is injuries. For the second straight season, their offensive line was crushed by injuries. All-Pro talent Rashawn Slater<\/a> was lost for the season in early August, Joe Alt<\/a> battled through injuries before having season-ending ankle surgery in early November and backup Trey Pipkins<\/a> III<\/a> missed a couple games while playing injured in several others. That\u2019s not a survivable situation in the modern NFL with how talented and athletic the front seven players can be, but it\u2019s a disappointing end to the season nonetheless. First-round running back Omarion Hampton<\/a> also missed games throughout the season and never quite recovered when he came back and free-agent Najee Harris<\/a> was put on season-ending injury reserve early in the season.<\/p>\n

\"Jan<\/p>\n

Justin Herbert took considerable punishment in Sunday’s defeat against the Patriots in the AFC’s wild-card round. (David Butler II-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect \/ REUTERS)<\/p>\n

It seems to happen to this team as much or more than any other, but the unpredictable swings of health really put a ceiling on what the Chargers could accomplish. That doesn\u2019t absolve the play of Herbert or any of the skill players, but they were playing with guys out of position and pulling so deep on the depth chart that it was preseason-quality offensive line play from time to time.<\/p>\n

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L.A. entered the playoffs playing on a razor-thin margin of error that isn\u2019t feasible to convert into wins at this point. The Chargers also didn\u2019t get any offensive answers from Jim Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman, who was fired shortly after the season-ending loss<\/a>. There\u2019s only so much window dressing that can be done during late-game comeback scenarios, but Roman once again struggled to put together a cohesive passing game, and even rookie sensation Ladd McConkey<\/a> had a serious dip in production in Year 2 with the Chargers.<\/p>\n

Beyond getting their players healthy and adding talent via the draft and free agency, the Chargers have to tinker with their plan of what this offense is going to look like if they want to have any sustained postseason success. Right now, they could use an overhaul of the passing game while they continue to develop their collection of young receivers. Even though Herbert hasn\u2019t played his best games in the playoffs (0-3 career record), he still has the talent to go on a deep run and three playoff games is just three games. The entire sample size of his career says this is still one of the best quarterbacks in the league and there\u2019s no reason to worry that he can\u2019t do this. There\u2019s still a long way to go on the 27-year-old\u2019s career and given the Chargers\u2019 overall competency they\u2019ll be competing for the playoffs for years to come.<\/p>\n

The good thing is they absolutely have a great thing going on defense, granted coordinator Jesse Minter doesn\u2019t take a head coaching job<\/a> this offseason. Minter\u2019s defense held up its end of the bargain and the Chargers have done a great job developing some of the young talent on that side over the past two seasons. It\u2019s on the offense and its \u00fcber-talented quarterback and historically successful head coach to right the ship so they can maximize this current window.<\/p>\n

Games like Sunday make it seem like they\u2019re further away than they really are, but they still need a few uncertain and unknown pieces to come to fruition in a big way before they\u2019ll be ready to make that run people have been waiting for.<\/p>\n

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Sometimes it ain\u2019t your year. Sometimes it ain\u2019t anybody\u2019s year. That\u2019s how last night felt for the Chargers and now they\u2019re off to what should be a busy offseason with their league-leading projected $109 million in salary-cap space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another year, another playoff disappointment for a franchise that seems to have an abundance of them. The Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2064],"tags":[241,7,5661,1159,470,1014,262,2444,2443,4125,249,6,1482,288,1526],"class_list":{"0":"post-676555","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-joe-alt","11":"tag-justin-herbert","12":"tag-ladd-mcconkey","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangeleschargers","17":"tag-najee-harris","18":"tag-new-england-patriots","19":"tag-nfl","20":"tag-offensive-line","21":"tag-omarion-hampton","22":"tag-rashawn-slater"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115893495795393146","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676555","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=676555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}