LA Chargers: Top five players from the 2020 season

1. Justin Herbert

I’ve tried playing devil’s advocate with myself to see if I could justify putting another Charger at number one for 2020. Bosa and Allen were terrific players this year. In 2019, Bosa topped my list as the best Charger of the season. But there truly was no other answer for number one than Hebert.

He proved all the doubters wrong, including myself. After being thrown into the game following Tyrod Taylor’s pneumothorax in Week 2, he went tit for tat with the best quarterback in the league. He decided to follow that up by putting on explosive shows against Tom Brady and Drew Brees on their home turfs. That series of games is what fully got me to buy in on Herbert in spite of my pre-draft objections.

Herbert broke the rookie passing touchdowns record, rookie completions record, and the rookie total touchdowns record. He was just over 30 yards short of breaking Andrew Luck‘s rookie passing yards record. Imagine him having all the major records if he had started Week 1. Or, well, if the coaching staff wasn’t as conservative.

If you told me in April that Herbert would have the most dominant rookie season by a quarterback in NFL history, I would’ve told you to chill out. Herbert was supposed to be a project that was ready by maybe the end of 2020 or the start of 2021.

Instead, he proved that he was a top 10 quarterback with a coaching staff that didn’t even really coach to his strengths, all things considered.

Herbert made what could’ve been an unwatchable Chargers’ season incredibly exciting. The potential of future seasons is endless because of what he did in his rookie campaign.