Gruesome details about Justin Herbert's injury emerge

After playing through fractured rib cartilage as well as a labrum injury in his non-throwing shoulder, fans were hoping that Justin Herbert would carry a clean bill of health in 2023. Unfortunately, that has not been the case as the Chargers signal-caller suffered an injury on his non-throwing middle finger in Week 4 against the Las Vegas Raiders.

Herbert got his finger stuck in a facemask after an interception and has been wearing a cast as well as a glove covering the cast since. While it is not on his throwing hand, it has impacted his ability to take snaps under center and how he hands the football off.

In classic Herbert fashion, he has downplayed the injury leaving fans wondering just how bad it really is. It appears that the injury was worse than fans could even imagine, as ESPN's Kris Rihm shared a gruesome detail about Herbert's injury in his latest profile of J.C. Jackson.

"In that same game, quarterback Justin Herbert played with a fractured left middle finger, an injury in which Herbert's bone punctured his skin. Herbert didn't miss any snaps. The juxtaposition of those moments was the final straw for the Chargers, according to team sources."

Justin Herbert's bone punctured his skin on his left middle finger

Ah, so this was not a really bad case of a jammed finger or a low-level fracture that wasn't that big of a deal. We are not anatomy experts here at Bolt Beat but we can definitely say that your finger bones are not supposed to puncture your skin. That feels like a safe thing to say.

As gruesome as this injury sounds, it yet again proves that Justin Herbert is the ultimate gamer. It is unfortunate that he had to deal with this injury but Herbert never missed a beat. He has continued to pilot the Chargers under center and hasn't used the injury as an excuse like so many other quarterbacks would.

Fans would have never realized that the injury was this severe, especially when all Herbert did was quote Monty Python after the game when asked about the injury. This was as serious a finger injury could be and Herbert was right back out there the next time the offense took the field.

This perhaps explains some of Herbert's poor play in the two games following the injury. On top of playing two really good defenses, Herbert had the memory of his bone sticking out of his finger in the back of his mind. We wouldn't want to take any sacks with that memory, either.