FIRST THINGS FIRST | Nick Wright ANGRY, Justin Herbert Will NOT Be BETTER With Los Angeles Chargers

FIRST THINGS FIRST | Nick Wright ANGRY, Justin Herbert Will NOT Be BETTER With Los Angeles Chargers | NFL
#firstthingsfirst #nickwright #losangeleschargers

Uh, a bonus beef to start. Oh, bonus beef. Yeah, the Chargers, you’re right. They are not a sleeper. They are not a real sleeper. They just gonna be downright good. They need to move up a tier or two. All right, cuz Harbaugh is an excellent coach. He only took him, we know what he did in San Francisco, but he took him from five wins last year to 11 wins. You know, five years, two years ago, 11 wins wins last year. defense went from 24th in scoring defense to first. Now he’s got better running backs, I think, in Naji Harris. And and I’m excited about the rookie out of North Carolina, Omar Hampton. He’s a beast. Yeah. And I think Herbert, he’s just going to work with him and make him better even though he won’t throw it as much. Like I think they are going to have a very good season. Can I just So they need to move. Before you go to your next thing, I hear a lot of this about the Chargers. Can we all agree just definitionally they won’t have a better defense than they did last year when it was number one in the league? No, they have a better off the Well, but so here’s the defense will still be I don’t know that they’re going to have that you’re going to get a better year from Herbert than what I think was 21 touchdowns to three interceptions and it was a paragon of efficiency until of course he had to play in a game that mattered and he more than and he had more interceptions in that game than he had in the whole regular season. like the Chargers, the the perpetual belief that this is the year for the Chargers. No, I’m not saying they winning the Super Bowl, but they going to be better than just a bonus wherever that is and Herbert will be better. But how’s Okay, really? Yeah. All right. Now, he’s going to go on and talk about the 49ers, but we’re here to talk about the Chargers. I’m I’m gonna try so hard to not just repeat myself with all this that those interceptions. Justin Herbert was running for his life as well, just like we saw Patrick Mahomes do in the Super Bowl. Justin Herbert, some of those interceptions were really not his fault. It wasn’t like he just suddenly did not know how to play football. He was backed into a corner. He has to just let it rip. It didn’t work out. he actually played better dealing with the pressure in the blitz than actually we saw Patrick Mahomes do against the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl. So, it’s just it’s just funny that we want to explain that away, but we don’t want to for Justin Herbert. This this this obsession with the hatred of Justin Herbert or the doubt of Justin Herbert is so wild to me because Justin Herbert is clearly an awesome quarterback. an awesome quarterback and we don’t think that he can be better as he actually finally for the first time for the first time in an in his NFL career actually have continuity with high quality coaching really we just think that’s not going to happen this O line will be better because it’ll be more experienced this run game is definitely going to be better Harris is gonna have a lot of success not to mention the monster who they drafted. I’m excited to see that run running attack. And you do now allow Justin Herbert to not have to be front and center every single game, which is very much how Harball likes it. And it’s worked every single place he’s gone to. And this defense should be great. I understand what Nick is trying to get at when you’re the number one is like you can’t be more than number one or whatever. I get that. And and I think anytime you reach this really high level, um it’s hard to imagine that you’re going to be able to repeat that again. I said that about the Philadelphia Eagles with Saquon Barkley and their defense as well. So I I get that, but it doesn’t mean that you’re going to now collapse to now become like the 15th best defense or something. Um and this offense, you know, was was far from ideal. This team as a whole was a mess. Was an absolute mess. It’s why they were drafting at the top of the NFL the year before. I mean, they were a terribly run team. That was a mess. Harball had to do a ton. And the sheer fact that they played as well as they did last season and made the playoffs quite frankly was really remarkable that they won uh what was it 11 games. I mean just why are we trying to pretend like Justin Herbert didn’t play great? Like that’s what I don’t understand. Josh Allen was the MVP. Now, Josh Allen does a lot more with his legs, more total touchdowns, but 28 touchdowns, six interceptions. Justin Herbert was 23 touchdowns, three interceptions, 3,870 passing yards. Josh Josh Allen was 300 3,731. Josh Allen 63.6% completion percentage. Justin Herbert 65.9. Passer rating a wash 101.7. Justin Herbert 101.4. four to Josh Allen. Now, again, to be fair, Josh Allen had to do more. Made a lot had a lot more plays, made a lot more plays out of nothing. So, I’m not I’m not here to argue that Justin Herbert’s better than Josh Allen or that he deserved the MVP or or you know, any any of any of that type of of conversation here. And five touchdowns is a bit of a you know, that that’s a meaningful difference. But my point is is like the way how Nick talks about Justin Herbert is you think that he would be like down here that he had a year like Russell Wilson or something or Trevor Lawrence and it’s just it just doesn’t really make sense. And so like this ranking is kind of crazy. You’re so confident that the Bears and the Bucks and the Vikings and the 49ers and the Packers and the Texans that those teams are all going to be better. I understand even a team like the Commanders, they went to the NFC Championship game last year. The Lions, they’ve been great for these last couple of years. The Rams, wildly consistent. McVey, Stafford, etc. And of course, the top four teams who have been the most consistent teams for the last, you know, however many years. So, I get it. But when you’re talking about a team like the Bucks, the Bears, and to be fair, I believe in these teams as well. I really do. But to think that the Chargers are, you have the Chiefs at one and you have one, two, three, four, five, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. You got 12 teams between them. 12 teams between them. Doesn’t really make sense. And how many And how many tiers? One, two, three, four, five. Five tiers between the two of them. They’re the Chargers are five tiers inferior to the Kansas City Chiefs. And I’m using the Chiefs as a reference because they’re obviously in the same division. Okay. That’s why just doesn’t really hold up to me. And it’s funny because Nick said if the Chiefs played the Eagles again that he thinks that things would be different. He said that in this in this segment in in the broad segment, obviously not this specific segment that I’m discussing right now. You don’t think there’s any chance the Chargers would have been a little bit better if they got to play again against the Texans? I mean, you don’t think that it’s safe to say that the Chargers overperformed considering their roster and considering that they brought in a coach who hasn’t hadn’t coached in the NFL for years and had a lot of rebuilding to do, a lot of retooling, some some young players in key positions like O line and and your number one weapon and a run game who was not very consistent and injured and banged up and kind of had its own issues. So they couldn’t even really truly play the style of football that they wanted to play. Even Justin Herbert himself dealing with injuries. You don’t think any of that matters at all? You don’t think that the chance that they have a significantly more dominant run game with a true one two beast of a punch, that’s not going to help the command the the the Chargers out at all? You think their defense is going to magically regress? Again, I’m not saying that I’m guaranteeing that it’s going to be the top one. Again, I don’t even know if it was technically top one. That’s always the interesting when you look at the metrics, like you have to but under which standard is it actually? You can’t just use points uh allowed as that. And that’s obviously incredibly important, but like I still think context needs to be uh to be to be discussed about that, especially when you’re talking about going up against a team like the Raiders with backup quarterbacks. Um you have to figure out when did you play Bo Knicks and the Broncos. Um, you play Justin Fields and the Steelers, I think. So, it’s just like, you know, I think the defense actually has room to improve and get even better actually. I think they have room to get even better situationally, both offensively and defensively. That’s why I talk about this so much about situations. That’s why it’s not just about bottom line scores. It’s why it’s first I always use the ref I like to use a reference. I will use the bottom line stats and look at, you know, point differential, you know, whatever it may be. We’ll just stick with defense right now. Points allowed, right? And it’s like, okay, that at least signals to me, okay, you’re a good team, you’re a good defense because you can’t be a bad defense and be top five in points allowed. It’s like, that’s not physically possible. But then it’s like, okay, well, how did you play in key moments? How did you play in key games? When you played the the the great teams, how many points did you allow? Did you allow an avalanche of a run game? Did you allow the quarterback to torch you? Did you force any turnovers? Right? Like then you have to kind of unpack like how how did this stuff how did how did these games unfold? And and when did they unfold as well because it ma it does matter. And so under that logic, it’s like, yeah, the the Chargers didn’t do everything perfectly defensively, which is why that’s where I would point to the Eagles and be like, well, you could say the Eagles were better because when the when the moments mattered most, especially in the playoffs, like turn, you know, they forced turnovers after turnover after turnover after turnover. when they played the best quarterbacks and the best run game, they got after Lamar Jackson, they got after Derrick Henry. They got after Patrick Mahomes. They got after Jaden Daniels. You don’t understand what I’m saying? So, it’s just like those things matter. Same thing with the Kansas City Chiefs. They made the opposing quarterbacks and the opposing teams uncomfortable and obviously, as we know, came up huge in in multiple big moments defensively. And so like you didn’t really see that at the core for the Chargers. It’s not like it’s not that you didn’t see it, but it wasn’t like a defining characteristic for them. You didn’t watch them and say, “Oh, they’re playing the Ravens. They’re shutting. They they made Lamar so uncomfortable. Oh, Dererick Henry couldn’t get going.” I mean, Derrick Henry had 140 yards, 24 carries. Lamar Jackson had one of those like really easy smooth games. 177 yards, 16 for 22, two touchdown. Like his his day was very easy that game if you recall. Two touchdowns, a 126.5 rating. It was just very smooth, simple. Nobody was really uncomfortable. He didn’t even have to really run the ball too too much and it was very straightforward. So yeah, in these types of moments, in these types of games against this level of talent, of course they can improve. It’s why you have to look a little bit deeper in a lot of these situations. And that was another tough game where a run game would have really helped because I think this is when I think JK Dobbins went down. I think he was actually having a pretty good game. Memory serves me correctly. That’s why he only had six carries for 40 yards, 6.7 yards per attempt. I think he got knocked out in the first half. I really I I don’t remember 100%. But now you have and you had Justin Herbert as your second rusher for 29 yards. The way how their running attack is going to be now, Justin Herbert will probably never be the lead rusher ever again. And that’s great. That’s great. And he’ll probably never even be top two. And that’s great. That’s great. Justin Herbert about to be unleashed. I don’t know about in terms of the guys who can physically catch the ball. Not 100% sold on that aspect just yet, which is obviously important for a Justin Herbert. But in terms of what they’ll be able to do offensively and how Harbaugh wants to play, I have faith in. But it’s kind of funny to see that pretend sleepers cuz when Nick said the Chargers are pretend sleepers, he was like, “Oh, it’s not, you know, to say that the Chargers are going to be good or something like that.” He’s like, “That’s not really uh it’s not really a sleeper pick.” Like that’s, you know, like anyone can say that, but when you put him down there, it’s clear. It’s clear that you don’t realize just how good this team’s going to be. And I can’t wait to see in the comment section people like Chargers going to charge every year. It’s like I do not care what anyone said in 2020 or 2021 or 2022 or 2023. I do not care. I told you this was a new change. As soon as Harbaugh got hired, I said this is a new era for the Los Angeles Chargers. That San Diego is going to be redeemed. that Justin Herbert is going to be redeemed. That Southern California is going to be redeemed. They’re going to have a parade, a gas lamp. Those are just my thoughts. I’d absolutely love to hear yours. What do you guys all think about those San Diego Los Angeles Chargers and Justin Herbert? I guess there’s just no room for him to continue to be better and better and better over the years. I guess he’s the one quarterback who can’t improve and grow, I guess. I mean, I don’t know. He’s been pretty wildly consistent in a very inconsistent franchise. And I guess his defense also has no room to grow. That’s crazy. That’s man. But let me know in the comments below. I read every single comment. So whether you agree with me or disagree with me, either way, let’s get in some discussions. Let’s get in some fights. But ultimately, let’s just have some fun. And please do consider subscribing. We are building an amazing community here and absolutely love to see you part of it. I want to build something that we all generally feel connected to, something that we’re really excited to be part of. I think we’re all on our way to doing it. 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