Knowing they needed a win this past Saturday afternoon at SoFi Stadium to stay in the race for the AFC West, the Los Angeles Chargers failed to get the job done, making far too many mistakes in a 20-16 defeat to the Houston Texans that gifted the division to the Denver Broncos.
Despite dropping out of the division race, however, the Bolts still have a shot at top wild-card slot in the AFC in Week 18. If the Chargers beat the Broncos and the Texans lose to the Indianapolis Colts, Los Angeles, which currently owns the No. 6 seed, would take possession of the No. 5 slot, thus setting up a date in the Wild Card Round with either the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Baltimore Ravens, who will square off next Sunday night to determine the No. 4 seed as the winner of the AFC North.
However, getting said victory over the Broncos, who are still in a battle for the No. 1 seed, will be a lot more difficult now, as Jim Harbaugh surprisingly announced on Monday that Justin Herbert will not start Sunday's regular-season finale in Denver, as he's choosing to rest his Pro Bowl quarterback ahead of the postseason. As such, soon-to-be free agent Trey Lance will be under center for the Bolts in what now becomes his audition for the upcoming offseason.
While the playoffs are obviously the most important thing, Harbaugh's decision is robbing Herbert of the chance to set the NFL record for the most passing yards by a quarterback in his first six seasons.
Justin Herbert is just 66 yards away from breaking Peyton Manning's six-season passing record
While Herbert set a new Chargers rookie record with 4,336 yards in 2020, he fell just short of the all-time rookie record set by Andrew Luck, who tallied 4,374 yards in his first year with the Indianapolis Colts in 2012.
Since then, however, Herbert has set new marks for the most passing yards through two seasons (9,350), three seasons (14,089), four seasons (17,223), and five seasons (21,093).
Coming into this 2025 campaign, the Oregon alum needed 3,793 yards to surpass the six-season leader, Peyton Manning, who threw for 24,885 in his first six seasons with the Colts from 1998 to 2003.
With his 236-yard outing against the Texans, Herbert brought his season total to 3,727, which, in turn, brought his career regular-season total to 24,820, thus leaving him only 66 yards shy of taking sole possession of the six-season record.