NFL First Thoughts: Los Angeles Chargers
Under new OC Kellen Moore, it's time for Justin Herbert to air it out.
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Justin Herbert was drafted by the Los Angeles Chargers with the 6th pick in the first round of the 2020 draft, which was loaded with quarterbacks. In his time in the NFL, Herbert has made the playoffs once.
His career so far has been very polarizing. There’s people who carry criticisms of him from college and into the pro level, and then there’s others who really see what is going on, and the limitations around him. The Chargers, year after year, always seem to have injury problems. But they also have an offensive coordinator that couldn’t get out of his own way. If we go back and read the scouting report at the end of 2019 or early 2020 on Herbert, no matter what report you pull, you’ll see a lot of common phrases.
“Powerful arm”
“Can make all the throws”
“Can fire fastballs into tight windows”
“Deadly as a pocket passer when given time”
“Willing to push the ball downfield”
“Can test deep safeties because of his arm strength”
“Throws a tremendous deep ball”
All these things represent the quarterback he was coming out of college and still is today. But what becomes very puzzling is when you look back at the first three years of his career, you start to get a little bit confused by the stats. For his career, Herbert’s average yards per attempt is just 7.2, which is league average. He has gone from 7.5 his first two years to just 6.8 last year. When we look at intended air yards, which tells you how far down field a quarterback wants to throw the football, Herbert ranked 25th in his first year, 18th in his second year, and then last year, 31st (second lowest). When you think about who Herbert is in the league, at age 25, when he’s 31st in intended air yards despite all those accolades for his arm strength, you wonder what’s going on. The answer here for Herbert’s limitations can be pinned on one guy: offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi.
The Chargers under Lombardi have restricted what Herbert can do as well as not utilizing his skill set to his full potential. Lombardi came from an offense with the Saints that was built around an aging Drew Brees, who didn’t have the arm strength he once did. All of his passes were short, condensed, really quick. All of that led to a short, reduced, explosive pass offense. Lombardi carried it over to LA and tried to apply it to Herbert. Instead of squeezing the most out of his gifted strong-armed passer, he opted to keep him contained. The exception with the Chargers is Lombardi really stressed it on early downs. When you look at Herbert on first and second down, which are the most effective downs for a quarterback to pass, Herbert’s intended air yards on those throws last season was less than 4.5 yards downfield. Everything was short. It only opened up when the Chargers fell behind and were forced to air it out.
So you look at the Chargers’ win total this year at 9.5, essentially the same price we see every year since Herbert arrived in LA, and you wonder what might be different this year? Why would you consider betting ‘over’ if this team has all these issues? Well, Lombardi is out, and Kellen Moore is in as OC. If you look at what Moore did last year in Dallas, Dak Prescott was top 10 in intended air yards. That’s been a staple of what Moore wants to do, all while being sort of handcuffed by Jerry Jones’ desire to feed Ezekiel Elliott out of the backfield. So you take a step back and look at this situation, and you see a QB (Herbert) who has been held back by his coordinator (Lombardi), and an offensive coordinator (Moore) who was being somewhat restricted by his head coach and owner. Now they’re on the same team working together.
And already, as of June 8, we’re starting to see signs that things will be a lot different for the Chargers, Herbert and the offense in 2023. A few articles have come out recently that have been interesting. First was an interview with Keenan Allen after offseason workouts. Allen said the biggest difference between Lombardi’s offense and Moore’s is that “Kellen is going to call it differently when it comes to gameday playcalling. We have myself who can go deep. Mike (Williams) can go deep. We have a new guy, Quentin Johnston, he can go deep. Knowing what Moore wants to do, we’re probably going to be going deep a lot more often.”
Herbert is reported to be healthier, looking better and entering training camp with minimal limitations physically. A reporter covering the Chargers noticed more aggressive play calling when he was charting the plays with Herbert on the field. There were no more three, five and seven-yard passes.
Another reporter stated that the Chargers will be going deep far more this year, noting all the 40- and 50-yard passes Herbert threw.
The article ended by stating the obvious: “This isn’t Joe Lombardi’s offense no more.”