INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Justin Herbert avoided two rushers while he escaped the Chargers' collapsing pocket and chugged away on his sprained ankle. Throwing across his body on the move, he put a breathtaking pass about 19 yards downfield through a tiny window to a sprinting J.K. Dobbins — who dropped it.
Herbert's numbers weren't impressive in Los Angeles' 17-10 loss Sunday to the Kansas City Chiefs. The fifth-year quarterback went 16 of 27 for 179 yards with one touchdown pass, thrown on the opening drive in the second straight loss for the Chargers (2-2).
But given the extraordinary degree of difficulty Herbert faced, new Bolts coach Jim Harbaugh could only marvel at his quarterback's moxie.
“Some of those throws that he made, I don’t have the adjective for it,” Harbaugh said. “It’s warrior-like. It’s everything within his human power and then some, is the way I look at it. It’s incredible what he can do.”
Herbert incurred a high right ankle sprain last week in Pittsburgh, and he faced the Chiefs with a brace protecting an injury that is far from healed. But the quarterback apparently gave no consideration to the possibility of sitting out this week for extra rest heading into Los Angeles' bye week.
“I looked at those guys in that locker room, and I know that everyone else in that locker room would do it as well," Herbert said. "Everyone’s not feeling great. It’s the NFL. It’s a tough, it’s a brutal game, but I know that I left everything I had out there. I felt comfortable.”
Herbert was playing with limited mobility behind a patchwork offensive line missing starting left tackle Rashawn Slater and starting right tackle Joe Alt. Los Angeles relied on backup guard Jamaree Salyer at left tackle and right guard Trey Pipkins at right tackle — with practice-squad promotion Sam Mustipher playing right guard — against Chris Jones and the defending Super Bowl champions' array of sneaky blitzes and pressures.
Herbert's blockers weren't really up to the task, committing six accepted penalties while allowing 10 quarterback hits and two sacks by Jones on the Chargers' franchise quarterback.
“They do a good job of getting after the passer,” Herbert said. “We expected that, we knew that, and I thought we were preparing for it. I’ve got to do a better job of getting the ball out quicker with answers. I thought the offensive line did a great job stepping up, blocking, doing everything they needed to do, but it’s definitely on us to be better.”
And in the larger picture, Herbert is still adjusting to life in Harbaugh's new offense while playing without his three best playmakers for his first four years in Los Angeles: Keenan Allen, Mike Williams and Austin Ekeler all left the Chargers in the offseason.
Given everything against him in the past two games since the Chargers' 2-0 start, it's not surprising to see Herbert and his teammates scoring only 20 total points in the past two weeks. Harbaugh said he deserved blame for not putting Herbert in a position to excel.
"We’ve got to get Justin another half-second (or a) second," Harbaugh said. "We really do. He’s trying to get the ball out as fast as he possibly can.”
Herbert attempted to take some of the blame for his line's struggles, noting that they were using a new cadence at the line of scrimmage against the Chiefs. A lack of familiarity with that cadence might have led to the pre-snap penalties, he felt.
“I think it’s just one of those things where we’ve got to stay patient and we’ve got to hold our water and understand that the cadence, we have to use that as a weapon,” Herbert said. "This front seven that we were going against, we felt like it was important to be able to hold them off (with an unusual cadence). Unfortunately, we had too many penalties with that."
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