The Chargers went understandably run heavy in Monday night's OT win over the Eagles. They had QB Justin Herbert just a week removed from surgery for a fracture in his left hand, plus they got rookie RB Omarion Hampton back for the first time since Week 5 (ankle injury). But the final tally of 38 team rushes to just 26 pass attempts obscures the true play breakdown. Herbert ran a season-high 10 times for the game, but that included a season-high eight scrambles vs. just two designed runs. Those designed rushes didn't come until the Chargers' final possession of regulation and then their first of OT. And that fourth-quarter carry was actually designed to go to Vidal. Herbert decided to keep it after seeing a pair of defenders disrupt the blocking.
You might see those 10 rushing attempts for Herbert and think it a strange way to treat your QB playing through a hand injury. And Chargers coaches would probably agree with you.
Monday night's game included the team's third-most RB rushes all season. That trailed only Week 13 -- a 17-point victory that included Herbert injuring the hand -- and a lopsided Week 8 victory at Minnesota.
When L.A. did pass, it worked almost exclusively out of the shotgun. Herbert's 31 dropbacks marked his largest total since Week 7 and tied for his fourth-largest total of the season.
His 26 pass attempts, on the other hand, wound up fourth-fewest. Credit the Philly pass rush for keeping him uncomfortable. The absurd 63.4% pressure rate -- according to Pro Football Focus -- was Herbert's highest of the season.
Yeah, probably ... if you didn't already find a replacement.
Herbert leads the league in total pressures and sits behind only Shedeur Sanders and Justin Fields among multi-game starters in pressure rate.
The Chargers have clearly been trying to combat those protection issues lately by cutting pass volume:
When they increased the dropbacks against Philly, their ailing QB got terrorized.
Herbert has finished three straight games with 151 passing yards or less, tossing 3 TDs and 3 INTs over that span.
He'll land well outside our top 12 QBs for Week 15 at Kansas City and a Week 17 home date with Houston.
That trip to Dallas in between? We'll see. But don't head toward that week with Herbert as your only option.
All Chargers pass-catchers have slid down our rankings in recent weeks, and you should continue to view them skeptically as you make your lineup decisions.
It's worth noting that WR Ladd McConkey drew a team-high five targets Monday night, despite managing just 1 catch. That marked a decent 21.7% of Chargers targeted passes for the game.
Still, the whole situation leaves McConkey looking like merely a high-end WR3 option -- with the others trailing him.
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