Justin Herbert - Bolts Franchise QB Official Discussion

[UglyTruth]

[UglyTruth]

Good article. However, this part is concerning. Hopefully it’s just Herbert and Lombardi working out the kinks together and plays will be better on 1st and 2nd downs.

Staley is a guy that pays attention to analytics so I’m sure he will consult with Lombardi about this if needed. I do notice that Keenan Allen in particular is running way less slants than he has maybe ever in his career since getting drafted here. Usually he does that double move to the outside then runs a slant and it’s a signature play of his because of his elite route running skills but it hasn’t been used much yet this season.

I do think their still figuring out the offense so they may be adding stuff to it as the season goes along.

I’m surprised the play action number is so low because I actually thought Herbert was completing a pretty % on play action just from watching the games without looking into the metrics.

[gzubeck]

Staley is a guy that pays attention to analytics so I’m sure he will consult with Lombardi about this if needed. I do notice that Keenan Allen in particular is running way less slants than he has maybe ever in his career since getting drafted here. Usually he does that double move to the outside then runs a slant and it’s a signature play of his because of his elite route running skills but it hasn’t been used much yet this season.

I do think their still figuring out the offense so they may be adding stuff to it as the season goes along.

I’m surprised the play action number is so low because I actually thought Herbert was completing a pretty % on play action just from watching the games without looking into the metrics.

I stay up late at night throwing the chicken bones, Poking my voodoo dolls and consulting the Stars....to get the desired results....

:hello:

[Steve]

Staley is a guy that pays attention to analytics so I’m sure he will consult with Lombardi about this if needed. I do notice that Keenan Allen in particular is running way less slants than he has maybe ever in his career since getting drafted here. Usually he does that double move to the outside then runs a slant and it’s a signature play of his because of his elite route running skills but it hasn’t been used much yet this season.

I do think their still figuring out the offense so they may be adding stuff to it as the season goes along.

I’m surprised the play action number is so low because I actually thought Herbert was completing a pretty % on play action just from watching the games without looking into the metrics.

They are still figuring a bunch of stuff out, so I think we will see thing improve going forward.

We still are doing the play action thing because you don't need to have a great running game to throw play action (Staley's quote). But there are different kinds of play action and how much you throw play action is going to vary depending on how much we run.

[Xenos]

Popper’s article after the Brown’s game on Justin Herbert:

https://theathletic.com/2881555/2021/10/11/a-superstar-quarterback-justin-herbert-wills-chargers-to-wild-win-over-browns/

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The Chargerstrailed the Browns by a touchdown late in the fourth quarter Sunday at SoFi Stadium when quarterback Justin Herbert took a shotgun snap from his own 30-yard line.

Herbert had already led two touchdown drives in the quarter, but Baker Mayfield and the Browns offense — particularly their rushing attack — had matched each one. The Chargers defense was floundering and flailing. The unit had no answers. It looked plainly overmatched. And so here was Herbert being asked, again, to shoulder the weight of an entire team.

Herbert collected the snap and took a five-step drop. As Herbert hit his fifth step, Browns pass rusher Takkarist McKinley came screaming off the right edge. He had plowed through right tackle Storm Norton with a bull rush. The pocket was collapsing.

Herbert felt and saw the pressure and escaped to his right. McKinley got a hand to Herbert’s left shoulder, but the Chargers quarterback shrugged it off, never breaking stride or taking his eyes off his receivers downfield. Herbert scrambled toward the sideline before unleashing a throw on the run. The laser traveled 40 yards on a rope. It soared tantalizingly over leaping Browns cornerback Troy Hill and into the waiting arms of Keenan Allen, who, with the grace of a ballet dancer, tapped both his toes in bounds for the reception and conversion.

The Chargers scored four plays later on a screen pass to Austin Ekeler to pull within a point. And though they needed another touchdown to win the game, this play was the perfect encapsulation of what Herbert did Sunday in a 47-42 victory.

On a got-to-have-it play, under the toughest of circumstances, Herbert used all of his skills — his magical arm, his brute strength, his smooth athleticism, his innate feel for the game, his competitive will — to carry the Chargers where they needed to go. They are now 4-1 and in first place in the AFC West.

“To win a game like this that turns into a track meet, you have to have a superstar quarterback,” coach Brandon Staley said after the win. “And that’s what he is.”

Justin Herbert has arrived. He is no longer one of the best young quarterbacks in football. He is no longer an up-and-comer. His rookie season was not lightning in a bottle.

He is a full-fledged lightning storm barreling down on the rest of the NFL.

He is an MVP candidate.

He is one of the best quarterbacks in football, period.

“To be able to do what we just did,” Ekeler said. “We need a guy like him.”

And what the Chargers did — what Herbert did — was historic.

They scored 26 points in a wild fourth quarter that featured more twists and turns than an M. Night Shyamalan film. It was the most offensive points scored by a team in the fourth quarter since 2013. The Chargers, with their leaky defense, needed every last one of them.

Herbert finished the game 26-of-43 passing for 398 yards and four touchdowns. He also rushed for 29 yards and a touchdown. Over his last three games, Herbert has completed 64.1 percent of his passes for 901 yards and 11 touchdowns without a single turnover.

Sophomore slump? Try sophomore surge.

“We’ve got a quarterback that’s really unique,” Staley said.

Unique is an overused word. But it is perfectly apt when describing Justin Herbert.

The Chargers are resilient because they follow the lead of their unflappable quarterback.

They trailed 10-7 when Herbert hit Mike Williams for a 72-yard bomb to take the lead in the second quarter.

They trailed 27-13 in the third quarter when Herbert engineered a 14-play, 84-yard drive that he capped off with a 9-yard scramble touchdown, escaping another collapsed pocket created by Myles Garrett.

The Chargers went for it on fourth down twice on that possession — once on a fourth-and-2 from their own 24-yard line, and once on a fourth-and-7 from the Cleveland 22-yard line. Ekeler converted the first fourth down on a shotgun run up the middle. Herbert converted the second with a dart to Allen on an out route. Herbert ran into the end zone two plays later.

“I don’t know how many coaches would’ve made that (decision),” Herbert said of Staley’s fourth-and-2 call. “I know ours did, though. And he believed in us.”

Staley went for two — staying true to the math with his decision-making — and Herbert found Donald Parham on a crafty play design from offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi. Allen lined up as a tailback and ran a route to the flat. The Browns defense flowed toward Allen, and Parham slipped wide open into the middle of the end zone.

The Chargers trailed 27-21 when Herbert converted a third-and-5 from his own 44-yard line on another off-script play, evading pressure from Garrett before throwing off his back to Jalen Guyton. On the next play, he hit Williams for a 42-yard touchdown on a post route, and the Chargers took a 28-27 lead, their first lead since the first quarter. Williams set a career high with 165 receiving yards.

“He showed us that he can get the job done no matter the situation,” Williams said.

The Chargers defense — which allowed 531 yards of offense, including 230 on the ground — broke down again two plays into the next Browns possession. Tight end David Njokucaught a deep crosser. Nasir Adderley missed the tackle. Njoku sprinted home for a 71-yard touchdown to give the Browns a 35-28 lead.

What did Herbert do? Well, he responded, of course.

A third-and-10 missile to Williams on a comeback route for a conversion. Three plays later, on fourth-and-4 from his own 41, Herbert escaped yet more pressure and lofted a throw downfield to Williams in single coverage. Pass interference on A.J. Green. Conversion. Three plays later, on a fourth-and-8 from the Cleveland 24, Herbert connected with Allen on an in-breaker. Ekeler scored from 4 yards out on the next snap to tie the score.

The Browns took the lead again on the next possession, driving 75 yards on five plays — screen, run, run, run, run.

Herbert answered again, spurring the drive with his miraculous third-down throw to Allen for 37 yards. Tristan Vizcaino’s missed extra point kept the Browns’ lead at 42-41.

“It doesn’t happen unless you got a gunslinger back there who can make some extra plays and make stuff happen when it’s not looking great,” Ekeler said.

The Chargers defense came up with a rare stop, and Herbert took the ball and scored again. He found tight end Jared Cook

[Xenos]

Tyler Dunne gives Herbert some love:

https://www.golongtd.com/p/this-night-josh-allen-eliminates

Justin Herbert cannot be stopped

Granted, there is one other quarterback who’d like to have a word in all this Mahomes and Allen talk and this quarterback is arguably playing better than both.

All Justin Herbert did on Sunday was pass for 398 yards with five total touchdowns against the same Cleveland Browns defense that whacked around Justin Fields (six completions, nine sacks) and Kirk Cousins (20-of-38) the last two weeks.

The Los Angeles Chargers quarterback yet again announced that he has arrived in this 47-42 win.

It truly has not mattered who Herbert faces — he’s vanquishing defenses. Five games in, he’s your MVP. Hall-of-Famer Jimmy Johnson even took it a step further in saying he’d select Herbert No. 1 in a draft of all NFL players today. We can see why, too. Herbert doesn’t blink when free runners are in his face. His deep-ball accuracy is straight out of a video game. And future Hall-of-Famer Drew Brees made an excellent point during the Bills/Chiefs weather delay: The velocity on Herbert’s deep ball speeds up the further it travels which is dangerously strange for every defense facing the Chargers.

This is a perfect union. Hopefully people in L.A. get on board to witness something special.

The quarterback doesn’t have any visible weaknesses. The head coach, Brandon Staley, proved at Arrowhead that he’s a tenacious playcaller. He kept throwing — late — when practically every other coach would run. The supporting cast is loaded. Austin Ekeler is the new Alvin Kamara in OC Joe Lomardi’s offense, and his background is fairly remarkable. We sat down two years ago for this. Keenan Allen will obviously attract the most attention in the passing game because he basically has created his own route tree. Nobody gets in and out of cuts like him. But what about Williams? In this scheme, he’s blown up. He has 31 catches for 471 yards (15.2 avg.) with six touchdowns through five games.

This is the player who takes the Chargers offense (and Herbert) to a new level.

Expect a story at Go Long this week. We chatted with Williams recently.

[gzubeck]

Interesting Interview on Dan Patrick...Dan giving Justin crap about what he does for fun during the season...kid is just trying to keep up with everything during the season...Herbert does have hobbies off season. Damn Dan...

[Velo]

With 44 TD passes in 20 starts, Herbert is 6th on the Chargers all time TD pass list. No. 5 Drew Brees has 80. Unless Herbert goes on a record breaking tear, he probably won't reach that this season. Humphries has 45. The top three all have over 200, and of course are Hadl (201), Fouts (254), and Rivers (397). Interesting to note that Rivers started 228 games for the Chargers and averaged 1.74 TDs per. Herbert's TD per start rate is 2.2.

[BoltUp InLA]

Justin Herbert is like Philip Rivers on steroids!! LOL!! Rivers was one of my favorite all-time players to watch. I feel sorry for him in that this organization did not provide the overall stability that great QBs must have to flourish. I remember him being clutch up until he got into some bad habits while trying to carry the Chargers when it was obvious that many of those later teams lacked overall talent.

Herbert though, who is nearly as accurate as Rivers was, can also make throws Rivers only could dream of completing. Add to that his smooth fluid running style. He knows how and when to run to efficiently maximize his runs without putting himself at greater risk, which most QBs, even the mobile ones, have a tough time doing. Herbert, like his coach, undeniably breath so much hope and energy to an otherwise broken or dysfunctional franchise. I don't remember being this excited since Marty and LT were in full speed over a couple of decades ago!!

[dmac_bolt]

With 44 TD passes in 20 starts, Herbert is 6th on the Chargers all time TD pass list. No. 5 Drew Brees has 80. Unless Herbert goes on a record breaking tear, he probably won't reach that this season. Humphries has 45. The top three all have over 200, and of course are Hadl (201), Fouts (254), and Rivers (397). Interesting to note that Rivers started 228 games for the Chargers and averaged 1.74 TDs per. Herbert's TD per start rate is 2.2.

How can JH be #6 at 44, DB #5 at 80, and Stan somehow not squeezed between the two (5 and 6) if he had 45?

[Velo]

How can JH be #6 at 44, DB #5 at 80, and Stan somehow not squeezed between the two (5 and 6) if he had 45?

Humphries has 85. Sorry. I use Pro Football Reference as a source https://www.pro-football-reference.c...er-passing.htm

[BoltBacker]

GOAT

Im still here, just been busy. Enjoying the Herbie express.