PFF believes the Chargers need to stay away from Justin Herbert

Pro Football Focus’s Anthony Treash released an article this week detailing the “best-case scenarios” for each of the 32 NFL teams in this year’s draft. For the Chargers, PFF believes that it would be in the Bolts’ best interest to stay far away from Oregon’s Justin Herbert, no matter if they want to draft a quarterback or not.

Here’s what Trash had to say on the matter:

“There have been rumors of the Chargers being interested in Oregon signal-caller Justin Herbert, but picking him No. 6 overall is a massive stretch. Sure, he’s got a cannon of an arm, but there’s not much else to get excited about. Out of all the top quarterbacks in this class, Herbert posted the highest rate of attempts resulting in a QB-fault incompletion in 2019, according to PFF’s ball-charting process. He looked panicky whenever he was knocked off rhythm and never came up clutch in the big games this past year. Overall in 2019, Herbert produced a wins above average total (WAA) that ranked 41st among FBS quarterbacks — that would be the second-lowest total by any first-round quarterback drafted in the PFF College era (only better than Josh Allen). He’s got a lot of potential, but drafting early based on potential is where you can hurt yourself.”

It’s hard to argue with Anthony on the points he uses in his post. Herbert really wasn’t all that great against the top teams on their schedule. His top-3 toughest opponents in 2019 were Auburn, Utah, and Wisconsin. In those games, Herbert combined to throw just two touchdowns and a single interception. He did, however, rush for three touchdowns in the victory over the Badgers in the Rose Bowl. Although they won, you can’t really say they won because of Herbert, but more that they didn’t lose because of him.

At the same time, sometimes that can be a better thing than most would admit. I mean, would you guys rather have a quarterback that doesn’t throw picks but averages a touchdown a game or someone who throws for 350 yards and multiple scores while tossing the occasional interception? I’d probably go with the latter, but the latter means more consistent frustration as opposed to the former.

Anyways, we know Herbert has a litany of God-given traits that you cannot coach, physically and mentally, but we has fans will have to decide how to balance his pros with his cons.