SAN DIEGO — Prolific passer Philip Rivers went to seven postseasons but never a Super Bowl, raising this question: why should his Chargers successor, Justin Herbert, be any different in his trophy pursuit?
It's too soon to know if Herbert is more capable than Rivers, relative to their respective contemporaries. Nor can we know if the franchise's longtime top boss, Dean Spanos, has improved at his job.
What we do know is this: The NFL loves profits and will make even more money if its entertaining quarterbacks, like Herbert, appear in Super Bowl tournaments. Bad QBs make for bad TV. Another easy way for the NFL to rake in more cash is to protect its quarterbacks. Especially the stars.
Herbert, as a result, is getting more NFL support in his bid for the Lombardi Trophy than the previous generation of QBs got, much like Rivers drew more NFL support than Dan Fouts, the Chargers' Hall of Fame QB who fell short of the Super Bowl.
Expand the playoffs, protect the QBs. That's the NFL's ticket.
Two years ago when NFL owners added a seventh spot to its playoffs, the postseason odds for Herbert's team (and every other team) improved from 37.5% to 43.8%, as compared with when Rivers played.
So, if he's able to match or exceed Rivers' longevity — 14 seasons as a starter — Herbert stands to get more bites at the apple.
And because of the larger playoff field, "load management" becomes easier for contenders not vying for the precious No. 1 seed. They can create a mini-bye by finding extra rest for key players, as Herbert's team apparently has been able to do, despite standing 6-6 just a few weeks ago.
(Similarly advantaged by baseball's newly expanded playoff format, the Padres and Phillies grabbed extra rest near season's end. Aided by those recharged stars, each team reached the NL Championship Series.)
Is the NFL's more inclusive system rewarding teams that don't win their division?
Too soon to know. But a pair of No. 4 seeds played in the recent Super Bowl, and a fifth seed, the Bucs, won the previous Super Bowl.
An even greater boon to Herbert's career is the NFL's escalating war on pass rushers.
It's beyond dispute that NFL officiating is sparing Herbert — a 6-foot-6, 245-pounder — many of the brutal hits that were legal when Rivers (6-5, 227) led the Chargers. Of course, it was much worse for Fouts, who by the end of many seasons, moved liked he was encased in plaster.
Rivers' 14-year streak of consecutive starts notwithstanding, the cumulative effect of the beatings — and the threat of more blows — took an obvious toll. When the protection routinely crumbled around Rivers, who was nurtured early in his career by reliable blocking and strong ground games, his fundamentals took an inevitable hit, too.
In the sixth season after Rivers succeeded Drew Brees, Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young declared that inadequate pass protection had eroded Rivers' fundamental footwork by inducing too many back-foot flings. Later in that 2012 season, Rivers acknowledged "seeing ghosts" after chucking a critical interception at Tampa.
In every season between 2011 and 2016, Rivers threw multiple "pick-6" interceptions. That's not exactly a Super Bowl road map. Until the Raiders' Derek Carr matched that streak this year, Rivers was the only player since 1991 to have multiple interceptions returned for touchdowns in five straight seasons, per The Associated Press.
So now, with the NFL flagging many of the hits Rivers used to take, Herbert has a much better chance of avoiding the deterioration that afflicted long-term QBs. Yellow flags are his green flag.
Herbert, 24, brings his own special tools to the job. His combination of size, arm strength and sprint speed borders on unique in NFL history. Showing durability that couldn't have been forecast, he is one of only four franchise quarterbacks to be available to his team for every start since Week 1 of the 2020 season.
But he didn't exactly land in the lap of a blue-chip franchise. Under their current football front office assembled in 2013, the Chargers haven't been so hot at reaching the playoffs, getting there just twice before this season.
And in most of those years, their offensive line wasn't so hot at protecting the quarterback.
The NFL's helping hand matters. And it's helping Justin Herbert.
Three things
— New Broncos ownership should look into hiring Jim Harbaugh. A former Chargers quarterback, he's fared well in all of his coaching jobs, beginning at the University of San Diego (.828 win rate over three years), followed by Stanford (.580 over four years, with three top-12 postseason rankings), the 49ers (.625 in four years, three playoffs teams, one NFC champion) and Michigan (.755 in eight years, a No. 2 ranking last postseason and No. 2 seed in this year's national playoffs).
— There's no reason to believe Russell Wilson, at 34, will regain the mobility that facilitated his best performances with the Seahawks years ago. He'll need a lot more help to rebound. Denver's offensive line and pass-catching corps are mediocre, at best.
— In the playoffs, the Cowboys will need physical playmaking like they showed Sunday against the Eagles. Their defensive backs grabbed two contested passes for interceptions.
