Justin Herbert Is Overrated: It’s Time to Admit It

Justin Herbert Is Overrated: It’s Time to Admit It

Reality is setting in as a Miami Dolphins fan after the first two weeks of the NFL season; the Dolphins are showing right now that this rebuild is going to be more painful than we expected. 

However, if there is one thing that has made me smile the first couple of weeks of the NFL, it’s the disappointing play of the Los Angeles Chargers and their quarterback Justin Herbert.

All offseason, I heard how they hired former Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel and how he was going to unlock Herbert’s potential and take his game to another level. I feel like I have been hearing that for the past 5 years or so, with different coaches, and that things are going to be different for Herbert. People are proclaiming Herbert as a star, and frankly, I’m not seeing it. 

In 2020, the Dolphins took Tua Tagovailoa over Herbert, and there was a lot of debate over whether they made the right pick because Tagovailoa had durability concerns, wasn’t mobile, and had a noodle arm. He was the complete opposite of Herbert.

They both started their rookie seasons on the bench, but when Herbert got his first start in a game in Week 2 of 2020 due to Tyrod Taylor getting his lung punctured accidentally from an injection shot, Herbert showed off his arm and had a good game in defeat, prompting many analysts on ESPN, such as Ryan Clark and Mike Greenberg, to say the Dolphins picked the wrong quarterback. Greenberg went on to say on his radio show that Herbert is special.   

Well, I’m not seeing anything special about Herbert. 

I watched a lot of his college games at Oregon, and yes, Herbert is big with a powerful arm and mobility to extend plays when they break down, but I always came away underwhelmed watching him. I see the talent, but I’m not seeing it translate on the field. 

From 2020-2023, Herbert put up good numbers and led the Chargers to a playoff game one year, but the results didn’t show, and people pointed to bad coaching, including when Kellen Moore was the offensive coordinator. Moore was an up-and-coming coordinator, and people felt he could unlock Herbert, but he couldn’t.

Since then, Moore is now the head coach of the New Orleans Saints, and he has a second-year quarterback in Tyler Shough, and he is getting more out of him than Herbert.  

The Chargers then hired Jim Harbaugh as head coach in 2024, and people felt Harbaugh would get the most out of Herbert because Harbaugh was a former quarterback. While the Chargers went to the playoffs for the last two years, Herbert put up duds in both playoff games.

Harbaugh decided to change offensive coordinators and brought in McDaniel because of his innovative offense and his ability to help elevate Tagovailoa during his time with the Dolphins, before injuries got in the way. 

People felt that McDaniel would do more with Herbert and could use more of his playbook because of Herbert’s strong arm. Well, through games, Herbert has been pedestrian again, and he is going up against bad teams in the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders at home, and in both games they lost. 

I know it’s only two games, and there is plenty of season left, but right, it’s fair to wonder if the light will ever turn on for Herbert. I don’t think so. He has never been able to elevate his play in big moments consistently, and he hasn’t won a playoff game in his 6 seasons.

People say the Dolphins would have been better off with Herbert, and I’m not so sure about that. Yes, he would have been on the field more, and yes, he has all the physical tools, but it’s not translating on the field. I think, if anything, we would probably be more frustrated as fans if the Dolphins drafted Herbert. 

There comes a point in every quarterback drafted highly: if they have what it takes to raise their team’s level of play and take them to the next level. Herbert isn’t proving to be that. He looks like a quarterback with a lot of talent but can’t put it together. For all the praise he gets from a lot of analysts, I think it’s time people started saying he is overrated, because that’s how I feel.