The reason why the LA Chargers were very aggressive this offseason and why the team has a legitimate Super Bowl window is Justin Herbert. The Bolts selected Herbert with the sixth overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft and two years later he is already one of the best quarterbacks in the entire NFL.
The deck has been stacked against Herbert as well. Herbert has consistently undergone coaching changes and once he hit the league, he had to play behind the worst offensive line in the entire sport. Everything was set up for Herbert to fail and a lot of people expected him to fail.
Instead, Herbert broke just about every rookie passing record there was to break. That was not enough, some outlets thought that a sophomore regression was coming and that he wouldn't be able to duplicate his performance. Herbert got even better in year two, cementing himself as a top-five quarterback in the league.
Now Herbert enters his second season in Brandon Staley and Joe Lombardi's offensive scheme, giving him his first taste of continuity since he was in high school. Herbert is going to continue to climb the ladder and could win the MVP award this season, cementing himself as the new face of the NFL.
Yet somehow Justin Herbert is not the best player under the age of 25.
Pro Football Focus, which was notably very against Justin Herbert and was the outlet that was most predicting his regression in year two, recently ranked the top 25 players under the age of 25. Justin Herbert is undeniable at this point and ranked very high on this list, coming in at no. 2.
Nick Bosa ranked no. 1 and with no disrespect towards Bosa, he really should not rank ahead of Justin Herbert on this list. You ask any single football fan what player they would build a team around first and every single fan (probably even 49ers fans too) would say Justin Herbert.
Bosa is undoubtedly talented but Herbert plays a far more important position and is already in the elite crop of guys in that position. Bosa picked up 15.5 sacks last year and ranked third in pressures but he also played a lot of snaps. Bosa ranked 10th in pass-rush win rate, which was eight spots lower than Micah Parsons, who ranked sixth on the 25 under 25 list.
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This is by no means meant to be a deconstruction of Nick Bosa's game as he is a very talented football player. It is just impossible to make the case for any player under the age of 25 than the best under 25 quarterback of all time.