Herbert has played in 59 career games: 58 regular season games and 1 playoff game.
So in slightly more than 10% of his career games, the Chargers score 30 or more points and lose. Those specific games were:
- 10-4-2020 31-38 loss to TB
- 11-1-2020 30-31 loss to DEN
- 1-9-2022 32-35 loss to LV
- 1-14-2023 30-31 loss to JAX (playoff)
- 9-10-2023 34-36 loss to MIA
- 11-12-2023 38-41 loss to DET
This is obviously not accounting for defensive scores, short fields, etc. but is instead just a simple observation.
For comparison’s sake, I looked at Tom Brady. He’s played a long time, right? So surely he would have a bunch of these games, too.
Brady played in 383 career games: 335 regular season games and 48 playoff games. In those games, Brady’s team scored 30+ points and lost just nine times, or just over 2%. Those specific games were:
- 1-21-2007 34-38 loss to IND (playoff)
- 11-15-2009 — 34-35 loss to IND
- 9-25-2011 — 31-34 loss to BUF
- 9-23-2012 — 30-31 loss to BAL
- 12-16-2012 — 34-41 loss to SF
- 10-1-2017 — 30-33 loss to CAR
- 2-4-2018 33-41 loss to PHI (playoff)
- 12-9-2018 — 33-34 loss to MIA
- 10-2-2022 — 31-41 loss to KC
I also quickly looked at some of the best current QBs just to get a sense of what Herbert’s contemporaries experience:
- Joe Burrow has had 3 such games (all regular season, 2 in his abbreviated rookie year) of 58 games total, ~5%
- Josh Allen has had 4 such games (3 regular season, 1 in the famous KC playoff loss) of 94 games total, ~4%
- Tua Tagovailoa has never once scored 30 points and lost in 45 career games (though I don’t think he started/finished all of them)
- Jalen Hurts has had 2 such games (1 regular season, 1 in last year’s Super Bowl) of 58 games total, ~3.5%
- Patrick Mahomes has had 8 such games (7 regular season, 1 playoffs) of 103 games total, ~8%… these were pretty prevalent (relatively speaking) early in Mahomes career but are rarer over the last few years as KC’s defense has really emerged
- Yesterday was Lamar Jackson’s second-ever game scoring 30+ and losing out of 84 games he was involved, ~2% (though he didn’t start in all of them)
In conclusion: Fire Brandon Staley
Also note: It’s late and I’m just counting these on pro-football-reference; I may have messed up the count or the math!
Maybe Herbert is overrated. Surrounded by talent, barely sniffs the playoffs
The dude scored 38 points lol what do you want him to do?
What talent? His defense is full of “names” who aren’t performing
James, Mack and Bosa are top tier defenders and start on any nfl team.
Not the way they are playing this year. Mack had one game with 6 sacks, Bosa I good for a sack + stupid penalty every game, James is so talented but kills the team with constant personal fouls or automatic 1st down penalties
James hasn’t looked good from watching the games. I don’t know if the numbers back this up or not. The secondary as a whole has been bad to me.