INGLEWOOD, CA — One of the most exciting games witnessed this season happened to take place in Week 11 of the NFL season, as the nation watched Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert take another step towards elevation in his budding career. Herbert led his team in the fourth quarter to a 41-37 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers at SoFi Stadium on Sunday night football.
Herbert completed 30 of 41 passes for 382 yards, three touchdowns and rushed for 90 yards in a thrilling victory. He is the first NFL quarterback to rush for 90 yards in a game, and surpassed a Chargers record that was previously set by Philip Rivers who rushed for 44 yards in a game. Herbert led his sixth career come from behind game win in the fourth quarter or overtime is tied for the sixth-most by a quarterback within the first two seasons of a career.
“He’s got real instincts at the game for the position,” Chargers head coach Brandon Staley said postgame. “His legs today really helped us win that football game. The way that they were playing the game, he knows when there’s daylight and he ran into it. What it does, is force the defense to change and that’s a good thing.”
He also became the eight player to throw for over 300 yards and rush for over 60 yards in a game twice in his career. He joined Steve Young, Seattle Seahawks’ Russell Wilson, Eagles’ Jalen Hurts and former NFL quarterbacks, Michael Vicks, Rich Gannon and Donovan McNabb on that list.
This performance was quite possible was of Herbert’s most complete and balanced games of his young career under center.
“From just the physical aspect of it, I just felt like he played with really good timing last night,” Staley said on Monday morning. “Sometimes when you evaluate quarterbacks, it’s like, ‘How often are they stuck? Do they seem stuck ever?’ That’s one of his great strengths. This guy, he is not stuck very often. I felt like he played with really good timing and anticipation last night. That seam throw to Keenan [Allen], you’re going to see very few throws of that caliber with that type of coverage. The throw to Mike [Williams] in the turkey-hole shot, that’s big-time quarterbacking, understanding the coverage, understanding how people are playing him by trapping the flat. He had seen it a couple of times. There was a lot of that going on. I thought that the guy played with real energy last night.”
Herbert also captured another milestone as he became the fastest quarterback to reach over 7,000 yards passing for his career in his 25th game tying for Rams and Hall Of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner. The cerebral quarterback that he is, continues to beat his opponents physically and mentally which is a dangerous combo to play against.
He’s responsible for throwing a game winning touchdown to a wide open wide receiver Mike Williams down the sidelines.
“That’s one of those plays that we ran a couple of times in the game,” Herbert said. “The corner ended up sitting on our ‘F’ — whoever ran that little option route. We kind of talked about it on the sideline. It happened the first couple of times we ran it and I told Mike to just be ready for it and he did a great job running his route, breaking tackles and scoring.”
“I think it all starts with the guys up front,” Herbert credits his teammates for Sunday’s win. “Our offensive line has done a great job battling all year and they gave me plenty of time to throw the ball today. To have those guys on the outside, Mike Williams, Keenan Allen, Jared Cook, Austin Ekeler; those guys make plays. They make my job so much easier. All I have to do is get them the ball and something is going to happen.”
With the Chargers currently sitting 6-4 on the season and in prime position to take the AFC West division, the sky is truly the limit for Herbert and the Bolts as they ride this wave of execution, persistence and evolving every week.
The Chargers face the Broncos in Denver on Sunday at 1:05PM PT.
