You have to feel a little bad for Justin Herbert, who ended Sunday night's 16-3 wild card loss to the New England Patriots by getting treated like a jobber in a Hell In A Cell match. The Patriots' front seven, which sacked Herbert six times, seemed to be trying out various suplexes on him throughout the fourth quarter, and the only real drama left in the game at that point was about whether Herbert would be able to finish it.
You have to feel a little exhausted by Justin Herbert, too, who is now 0-3 in the playoffs and has once again made meaningless a pile of regular-season statistics that would seem to indicate he's one of the best quarterbacks in the league. All Herbert managed to do on Sunday was complete 19 of his 31 pass attempts for 159 yards. The best thing he did for himself was spend the final few drives getting clobbered, because now people are more likely to remember the game for how the Chargers' patchwork offensive line ultimately came apart than for how useless Herbert was before the Patriots started teeing off.
If you watched this game, you know that Herbert had more than enough chances to win it. His defense did the hard work of containing Drake Maye and the Patriots offense, holding them to just six points in the first half and creating two turnovers, one of which gifted Herbert a drive that started on the Pats' 10-yard line. And that scrub-loaded offensive line gifted Herbert more time to throw in the first half than his panicked visage and decision-making indicated, but every time there was a big throw there for him to make, he flubbed it. Open receivers were badly overthrown or underthrown, clean pockets were abandoned for no reason, and eventually it became clear that Herbert's only real ambition was to fling a hopeless ball downfield and beg for a pass interference call. Herbert's most effective play of the night was one where he got strip-sacked, allowing his running back Kimani Vidal to scoop up the loose ball and run for 17 yards.
I'm sick of this guy. Herbert did on Sunday what he always seems to do in big games, which is play down to expectations. Yes, he was dealing with a broken left hand, his offensive line was doomed to hold up only for a few quarters, and he doesn't have a ton of offensive weapons to work with, but every quarterback resides in some version of hell this time of year. The good ones, like Josh Allen, Caleb Williams, and pre-2025 Patrick Mahomes consistently find a way to rise above such circumstances and win games, but Herbert falls victim far too easily. The Chargers didn't even need that much from Herbert in order to win—Maye was having nearly as bad of a night as he was—but every time a clean pocket or open receiver downfield presented itself, he had nothing to offer. Herbert has two career playoff touchdowns to go with a completion percentage of 54, and the game in which he helped blow a 27-0 lead to the Jaguars probably counts as his best postseason performance. How you want to rank last night's debacle against the one in which he threw four picks against the Texans last postseason is up to you.
We can't lay all of the blame at Herbert's feet, though. Jim Harbaugh seems to be stuck coaching a bygone version of football, one which his personnel is ill-suited to play in games that matter. And offensive coordinator Greg Roman has once again stumbled his way through executing a timid game plan. Harbaugh and Roman have now presided over two playoff games during their tenure, and they have produced one offensive touchdown in those games while being outscored 48-15. As the Chargers struggled through their final drive of the night, one in which they were running a leisurely four-minute drill as if they were down by one score instead of two, there was only one conclusion to be drawn: We've seen more than enough of this stupid, boring team in January. Here's hoping we never have to again.
