The Chargers' 0-5 Start Is on the Offensive Line, Not Justin Herbert

Four rookies started on the line in Sunday's 23-17 loss to Denver, and Herbert was sacked five times.

Justin Herbert fumbled on one fourth-quarter drive and threw an interception on the next, and the Chargers gave away a game they'd led. I'm still not putting 0-5 on him.

The Chargers lost 23-17 to the Denver Broncos at SoFi Stadium on Sunday and are 0-5 for the first time since 2003, the Los Angeles Times reported. They did it with four rookies starting on Herbert's offensive line, three of them backups. That's the problem. When Jim Harbaugh called his plan "staying the course," he got exactly one piece of it right: the quarterback.

Look at who was blocking. Both starting tackles, Joe Alt and Rashawn Slater, went down the previous Sunday at Seattle. Yahoo Sports reported before kickoff that Logan Taylor would replace Slater at left tackle. The team's own transactions page lists Taylor as a Boston College guard it took 202nd overall in this year's draft.

The help behind them was thin, too. The club's injury report listed lineman Trevor Penning as out with a concussion, and the transactions page shows him placed on injured reserve.

So Herbert got hit. Denver sacked him five times, and the last one came on the final snap with the Chargers in Broncos territory, according to the team's game recap. Through four weeks, he was already tied for the league's second-most sacks taken, Yahoo Sports noted.

The slide started with a play Harbaugh owns. Up 17-10 early in the fourth quarter, the Chargers went for it on fourth-and-one from their own 41, and Herbert got stuffed on a keeper. Harbaugh said he should've punted, and should've called timeout when he saw Denver "gap down" to form the wall, the Times reported.

"I did not put our players, our team, our organization in the best position to win that game," Harbaugh said, according to the Times.

Denver tied it after that stop. Then came the fumble, which set up a short Broncos field goal, and the interception, which set up another. Those two are Herbert's, and he didn't argue: "Just can't turn the ball over," he said after the game, per the Times.

Yes, a franchise quarterback is supposed to protect a seven-point lead. And Herbert hasn't thrown more touchdowns than interceptions in any of his last seven games, a run that goes back to last season, according to the Times. But the Times also noted that last season's line was patched together as well. You can't protect a lead you can't block for.

Now look at what he did right out of halftime. The offense went 14 plays and 93 yards, went 4-for-4 on third down and got a 23-yard Herbert run into the red zone. It ended with his 7-yard touchdown pass to Hayden Rucci, the team recap said. He did all that without Quentin Johnston, who sat out with a chest injury, and with Ladd McConkey hobbled by a bad foot.

Most of the noise around the team is about Mike McDaniel, the former Miami Dolphins head coach who took over as offensive coordinator, and the Times reported that drumbeat gets louder with every loss. A new play-caller doesn't add a tackle. Next up is 4-0 Kansas City, then a week off, then the Rams.

Stay the course on Herbert. Change what's in front of him.

Source: Los Angeles Times, retrieved October 12, 2026. Other sources: sports.yahoo.com, chargers.com, chargers.com (2), chargers.com (3).