When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
The Los Angeles Chargers have tried telling us they shouldn't be taken seriously for half of a decade, and yet every year before the season begins, multiple folks in the NFL media world will get on their respective platforms and proclaim, "Woah now, watch out for the Chargers - this is the year they stop being complete crap."
That year has yet to come. The Chargers were defeated handedly by the New England Patriots by the score of 16-3 in the wild card round on Sunday night. While the Chargers have made the postseason in each of the first two years of the Jim Harbaugh era, they have been blown out in both of their wild card playoff games by a combined score of 48-15 and have scored just one touchdown across those two games. That brings us to their polarizing quarterback, who turned in yet another playoff stinker.
Justin Herbert continues to play poorly in the postseason
Herbert continued building his poor playoff portfolio on Sunday, going 19-of-31 for 159 yards and getting sacked six times. Dating back to the second half of the Chargers' playoff collapse to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 2021 postseason, Herbert has played outright awful in the playoffs. In his last 10 quarters of postseason play, he has completed just 50.6 percent of his passes with one touchdown, four interceptions, and has been sacked 12 times. And while the Chargers' offensive line has been largely bad in 2025, Herbert did himself no favors against the Patriots, running into several sacks and shooting himself in the foot a fair amount of times.
Considering the flip that seems to switch in the biggest games for Herbert, he should be nowhere near conversations regarding the top five quarterbacks in the NFL. He is now 0-3 in the playoffs, and has yet to put together a quality postseason performance in six seasons. Now, he's been surpassed by the quarterback on the other sideline on Sunday. Drake Maye has been in the NFL for 20 months and just played in his first playoff game, and yet he is already more accomplished than Herbert. When you throw in what Trevor Lawrence did this season and the fact that he has more playoff success than Herbert, as well, the former No. 6 overall pick quickly starts sliding down the list of top quarterbacks in the league.
Until the Chargers, and their quarterback, find a way to play a complete playoff game and actually win in the postseason, they will not be taken seriously as a team who can make a real run - nor should they. They have become the Lob City Los Angeles Clippers of the NFL. Flashy in the regular season with many a tweet showing highlights with an eyeball emoji, but paper tigers that crumble when the games really count.
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