by Paul Teetor
In no particular order, the top 4 quarterbacks in pro football are: Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers and…. Justin Herbert?
Yep.
Herbie, fully loaded with weapons up and down the line of scrimmage, from Mike Williams to Keenan Allen.
It’s official now: just three games into his second NFL season, Herbert is already one of the top guns in the National Football League.
That was the inescapable conclusion after Chargers 30, Chiefs 24 Sunday afternoon. The guy who broke virtually every rookie quarterback record last year arrived on the big stage for good when he took his team into Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium and outdueled Mahomes in a thriller that went down to the wire and lifted the Chargers record to 2-1.
With the stirring win the lightning bolts signaled they are indeed a serious threat to meet their SoFi landlords the Rams in the Super Bowl next February at – where else? – SoFi Stadium.
Whose House?
Herbie’s House!
It just could happen.
Regardless of who wins that potential Super Bowl, it would be the most highly anticipated football game – college or pro – in Los Angeles history.
Sunday’s win was a full-circle moment for Herbert, given that he announced his future greatness just a year ago against these very same Kansas City Chiefs, who have won the AFC West title each of the last five years and won the Super Bowl a couple of years ago.
The legend of Herbie the Super Hero started a year ago with an origin story straight out of Marvel Comics, a story that seems too good to be true. He was rushed into action with less than a minute’s notice as the starter against the Chiefs last year in a bizarre incident that invites all kinds of what if questions.
What if the Chargers scheduled starter, Tyrod Taylor, hadn’t been given a pre-game shot to ease soreness around his ribs? And what if the medical technician, who has never been publicly identified, hadn’t screwed up the shot so badly that he nearly punctured Taylor’s heart? And what if Taylor hadn’t been rushed to the hospital? And what if then-coach Anthony Lynn hadn’t decided on Herbert as the fill-in instead of Easton Stick, the third quarterback on the roster.
Herbert, after all, was an untried, untested rookie who hadn’t played a single down in the team’s first game of the season. And Lynn had already said that his plan was to let Herbert sit and watch and learn all year before seeing exactly what they had on their hands in his second season.
But all the what ifs were brushed aside by the careless medical tech and fate stepped in. From the moment Herbert got over the shock of being named the starter with literally 60 seconds to get ready, he looked like he belonged in the NFL.
Indeed, the 6-foot-6, 240-pound former Oregon star with the rocket-launcher arm matched Mahomes pass for pass and touchdown for touchdown until Lynn and his coaching staff found a way to lose by three points in overtime. In fact, Lynn lost so many close games with bizarre decisions and inept time management that he was fired the day after the season ended.
But now it’s a year later, and the Chargers have a new coach with a new approach. Brandon Staley, 38, is the former Rams defensive coordinator who is smart enough to know that he has a top-4 quarterback on his roster.
So when it came down to the key moment in the game – the game tied at 24-24 and the Chargers facing a fourth-and-nine from the Chiefs’ 35-yard line with 48 seconds left in regulation — Staley didn’t hesitate to put his fate in Herbie’s hands.
A lesser coach would have punted to pin the Chiefs deep in their own territory, hoped his team’s defense could hold off Mahomes for 48 seconds, and then re-grouped and tried to win it in overtime.
Not Staley. Why should he play it safe when he has a gun-slinger just as creative, just as bold, just as mobile as Mahomes — and five inches taller?
So what does Herbie do? He throws a 20-yard sideline bomb to Jalen Guyton that resulted in a pass interference call and a first down. A few plays later he found wide receiver Mike Williams – who was great all day – with a 5-yard fade that led him right into the end zone untouched with just 36 seconds left to play.
The legend of Herbie the Hero grew just a little more.
“I felt like Justin was the best player on the field,” Staley said, “and I think Mike Williams was right there with him. ”
It’s not just his physical attributes that have made Herbert so good so quickly. A prize-winning scholar at Oregon, he studies his playbook obsessively and demonstrated his superior knowledge of tactics and strategy on the game-winning pass.
When Herbert saw the defense lined up to stop a short-yardage run from the 4-yard line, he changed the call from a running play to a pass. The audible call freed up Williams for the TD and silenced a rocking Chiefs crowd.
Kicker Tristan Vizcaino missed the point after attempt – his second PAT miss of the day – which gave Mahomes one last chance to produce a TD with less than a minute to play. But the Chargers defense, led by defensive end Joey Bosa and Safety Derwin James, was so relentless that they forced Mahomes into four straight incompletions and time expired with the Herbert-to-Williams pass standing as the game-winning play.
Of course, this signature win – the biggest in the Charger’s admittedly barren LA history — wasn’t just about Herbert’s heroics. There were other Chargers who made this victory happen. The biggest play came when second-year safety Alohi Gilman picked off Mahomes for his first career interception with 1:42 left in regulation and the game tied 24-24.
And running back Austin Ekeler was just explosive enough to take pressure off Herbie so the Chiefs couldn’t rush him on every single play. As it was, Herbert finished with 26 completions on 38 passes, resulting in four TD’s and no turnovers. Meanwhile Mahomes went 27 of 44 for 260 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions.
In boxing, they would call that a TKO – a technical knockout – for Herbert. Williams, his favorite target, had seven receptions for a career-high 122 yards and two TD’s. Keenan Allen, who lines up on the opposite side from Williams, finished with eight catches for 50 yards and one TD.
Watch out, Rams: Herbie and his crew are coming for you and your dominance of the LA market. More than ever, pro football is all about the team’s quarterback. The QB, if he’s any good at all, becomes the face of the franchise. As good as the Rams’ Matthew Stafford is – a top 10 guy for sure and probably trending higher as the season goes on – Herbert is 10 years younger, bigger, stronger and more accurate.
After the game, a euphoric Staley summed up Herbert’s heroics with a rarely heard but totally apt phrase: “We are fortunate to have a gangster quarterback.”
The Chargers next game is Monday night when they host the Las Vegas Raiders on national TV. The Raiders are a team that knows something about handling gangster quarterbacks.
Let’s see if they can do it in Herbie’s House.
Rams now Super Bowl favorites
The new Ram beat the old GOAT.
Translation: Quarterback Matthew Stafford, who joined the Rams in an off-season trade for former Rams quarterback Jared Goff, led his team to a 34-24 victory over Tom Brady – the Greatest of All Time — and the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday afternoon at SoFi Stadium.
It was a nationally televised game that finally convinced the mainstream media of the idea that All Ball has been preaching since Stafford arrived in LA last spring: until further notice, the Rams are now the favorites to win the Super Bowl next February which, of course, will be played in SoFi Stadium.
It was a measuring stick game against the reigning champs, and Stafford and the Rams more than measured up as they upped their record to 3-0 and stuck the Bucs with a 2-1 record.
It wasn’t just that Stafford was awesome after a shaky 1-for-6 start, finishing 27 for 38 for 343 yards, four touchdowns and zero interceptions. Or that the Rams defense stifled the Bucs offense so badly that Brady was forced to pass 55 times while connecting 41 times for 432 yards and only one touchdown.
Even in the pass-happy modern NFL, when you are forced to pass on nearly every down the defense has an advantage: they can rear back and rush the passer without worrying about being burned by a running play.
And defensive lineman Aaron Donald – still the best defensive player in the NFL at age 30 – had a field day knocking down Brady, sacking him once and forcing him to throw shorter and shorter passes just to avoid being sacked again.
No, the real revelation of this inspirational win was that one of the few valid criticisms of the Rams so far – that they weren’t using speedy wide receiver DeSean Jackson nearly enough — was met head-on by Coach Sean McVay.
After the game McVay admitted that the critics were right, and said he had gone out of his way to make sure Jackson was included early and often in the team’s passing attack. In the end, he only caught three passes. But he piled up 120 yards, and fulfilled the function he was acquired for in the off-season: to scare defensive backs into playing soft pass coverage on guys like Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods for fear of being burned by a Stafford-to-Jackson long-range guided missile.
Indeed, that is exactly what happened on the third play after halftime, when the Rams were holding a 14-7 lead on two Stafford TD passes. On the play Jackson burst off the line of scrimmage without bothering to make any moves or fakes. He just motored down the field so fast that the Bucs defensive backs let him get open by 20 yards. Rams’ fans had visions of last year’s mistakes coming back to haunt them once again: all those times Jared Goff had underthrown or overthrown or just plain missed wide-open guys on long pass plays.
But this time it was different: Stafford spotted Jackson right away and heaved a long-range perfect spiral that hit Jackson on the 30-yard line and resulted in a 75-yard TD pass-and-run. It was so on-target that Jackson caught the ball in stride, teased the converging defenders by running backwards towards the end zone, and then finished it off with a hop, skip and a jump into the end zone.
Coach Sean McVay was so excited he sprinted from the Rams bench all the way to the other end of the field to embrace Jackson. His exuberance was understandable: this was living proof that his insistence on replacing Goff with Stafford and adding a proven deep-ball threat would return the Rams to the Super Bowl-worthy offense that they exhibited three years ago, before star running back Todd Gurley lost his burst to an arthritic knee and Goff lost his mojo altogether.
“I was just kind of being in the moment and having fun and enjoying watching these guys do their thing,” McVay said with a huge smile. “I think my hamstrings are already sore. I probably pulled them both, just out of pure excitement.”
Pure excitement: that’s been the missing factor for the Rams and their fans the last three seasons.
Now it’s missing no more.
Whose House?
Rams House!
Mira Costa nearly wins epic game, Redondo does win
Rarely does a hugely hyped high school game match the expectations it generates, both online and offline.
Loyola 34, Mira Costa 31 met all the expectations – and then some.
The expectation was that, with as many as 15 Manhattan Beach kids on the Loyola roster who otherwise might be playing for Costa, the Mustangs would lose easily but would at least put up a respectable resistance to the Cubs, who are ranked 17th in the LA Times rating of Southland football teams.
Instead, it was a pitched battle right to the end, a back-and-forth contest that pitted the strong right arm of Costa Quarterback Casey Pavlick against a deep and talented Loyola team.
The first game between the two teams since 2013 came down to a tricky late touchdown pass from Joe Tatum to Peter Vanis and a last second Mustang drive to tie or win the game that fell just short.
Costa’s hopes for a major upset soared sky high early in the second half when some sleight-of-hand produced a touchdown and a 17-13 Costa lead. The Mustangs pulled off a double pass with Pavlick first hitting Cole Crotty, and then Crotty finding Riley Blomstrand on a 45-yard pass to give them a four-point lead.
But the Cubs came right back with two TD’s that grabbed the lead back at 27-17.
Then the Mustangs star linebacker, Brett McCalla, intercepted Vanis to get the ball back. Three plays later Pavlick connected with Reese Leonard on an 11-yard TD pass that drew the Mustangs within 27-24.
The Cubs displayed some trickery of their own, with Joe Tatum hitting Vanis as he came out of the backfield and evaded several tacklers on his way to scoring a TD for a 34-24 lead.
Pavlick hit Leonard for another TD that cut the deficit to 34-31, but the Mustangs ran out of time on a desperate last second comeback attempt that ended on the Loyola 18-yard line.
The Mustangs fell to 2-3 while Loyola bumped its record up to 5-1 and retained its 17th place ranking in in the LAT ratings that came out Sunday.
Meanwhile Redondo secured its first win of the season after an 0-4 start by beating West Torrance 20-7. Mira Costa travels to Culver City Friday night to take on the defending Bay League champion while Redondo will host Peninsula.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. Follow @paulteetor. ER
