Chargers earn ‘B+’ in 23-17 win over Dolphins

Tua will be having nightmares of the Chargers secondary this week.

The Chargers entered Sunday night with a scoring defense ranked in the bottom five. They were set to face one of the most-explosive and productive passing offenses in the NFL led by Tyreek Hill, himself.

The entire cast of the Sunday Night Football pregame show picked Miami to beat the Chargers. In fact, the Bolts were picked against heavily in all of their Sunday Night Football appearances this season. But this time was different. Not only did the Chargers win the game, they made Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins offense silly while doing it.

At halftime, the former fifth-overall pick from 2020 had only completed three of 15 pass attempts for 25 yards. He eventually popped one to Hill for 60 yards in the second half, but that was mainly due to Michael Davis tripping over his own feet. Either way, it was NOT a fun day at the office for Tua.

For their efforts, CBS Sports NFL analyst John Breech gave the Chargers a “B+” for their performance in primetime.

“Justin Herbert finally had his two best receiving weapons (Keenan Allen and Mike Williams) on the field at the same time and he definitely took advantage of that. With the Chargers (7-6) in dire need of a win, Herbert took over, completing 39 of 50 passes for 367 yards and a touchdown. Allen and Williams combined to catch 18 of those passes for 208 yards. The Chargers offense didn’t light up the scoreboard, but it didn’t have to thanks to a defense that held Miami to just 219 yards. A loss here would have been devastating for the Chargers’ playoff chances, but Herbert was able to save their season with a wildly impressive performance.”

As Breech said, the Chargers didn’t pile it on Miami when it came to the scoreboard, but that once again isn’t something to place on Herbert’s shoulder. Despite having some fantastic play calls, there were times where Joe Lombardi simply refused throw the ball ahead of the line of scrimmage despite being just a few yards from the end zone.

With what he was asked to do, Herbert crushed it. You don’t just set a new career high in pass completions by accident.

Now at 7-6, the Chargers have one more tough task against the 7-6 Titans before facing a trio of softer matchups to finish the season. If they can capitalize on the chance to go 3-1 over the last month, they could miraculously finish 10-7 record and improve on their final mark from a season ago.