Peter King’s FMIA column this morning.
____
NFL Camp Snapshots
Snapshots from nearly a month on the road. I saw 20 teams in 27 days in 18 camps/stadia.
Favorite Story From A Player
You could probably think of 10 topics for a discussion with Chargers wunderkind quarterback Justin Herbert, but most of my time with him after one training-camp practice in Costa Mesa, Calif., was spent on one: Herbert’s shocking debut against Super Bowl champion Kansas City in Week 2 last year, in the Chargers’ first game ever at SoFi Stadium. That’s the day Tyrod Taylor suffered a punctured lung when a pregame pain-killing injection went awry. The Chargers had won the toss, with the full expectation that Taylor, the starting quarterback, would be playing with the first unit on a resplendent L.A. day. Then coach Anthony Lynn, with the kick-return team jogging onto the field, approached Herbert and told him, “You’re in.”
There’d been no preseason games because of Covid, meaning Herbert hadn’t taken a snap in a football game since the Rose Bowl nine months and 19 days earlier. Now he was playing, with no warning, Patrick Mahomes and the Super Bowl champs.
“It was maybe 15 to 20 seconds before kickoff,” Herbert told me. “I said, ‘All right.’ I didn’t have to worry about anything. You just go out there. We were about to receive the kickoff. I needed to get the plan [for the first series]. I needed to get my helmet. There were things that needed to happen really quickly. It kind of started spreading throughout the sideline. I remember Joey came up to me—Joey Bosa—slapping me on the shoulder. He said, ‘All right, it’s time to go. It’s up to you now.’ I remember thinking like, ‘Oh, it’s my turn. I get to go out there and play football now.’
“When I got to the huddle, I don’t think any of [the offensive players] knew what was going on. [Tight end] Hunter Henry, when he saw me out there, he gave me a look and almost said, ‘What are you doing out here?’ I just called the play and I said, ‘We’re gonna run the play. I’m gonna hand it off and we’re gonna get five yards.’ That’s kind of how it went down.”
Austin Ekeler got nine. On the next, another Ekeler run, and another gain of nine. Then a pass, incomplete, to Keenan Allen.
“I remember my first pass was to Keenen and I sailed it over his head. I was so excited I threw it probably 10 feet above his head. He came back to the huddle and he said, ‘Okay, calm down now. You got it out of your system.’ We come back and ended up completing a protection little check release to Josh Kelley for about 40 or 50 yards. I flipped the protection [to the left] and that’s kind of when I was like, Calm down, figure it out. It’s football. Maybe we can do this thing.
The swing pass to Kelley, also playing his first NFL game, gained 35. Man, nothing to this game. Easy stuff.
“No one on the Chiefs said anything,” Herbert said. “It was really quiet, especially with no fans out there, either.”
Under pressure, Herbert made a precocious back-shoulder throw to Ekeler, getting the Chargers inside the 5-yard line. Then, from the KC 4 on third-and-goal, the call from offensive coordinator Shane Steichen came into his helmet. First option, a pass to Kelley in the right flat. Second option, a pass to tight end Anderson in the back of the end zone. Both covered. With KC defensive end Mike Danna in traffic with Kelley to the right and no other defender in sight, Herbert took off. “It wasn’t supposed to be scripted up like that,” Herbert said. “[Danna] sunk, so I just took it in.”
Herbert’s a modest kid. He mostly stays off social media, figuring it can’t help him in any way. When he thinks back to that September day in the SoFi echo chamber, the memories are good, despite the overtime loss. Herbert: 311 passing yards, 94.4 rating. Patrick Mahomes: 302 yards, 90.9 rating. He understands pretty well that he’ll have a good story to tell his kids one day.
“It was a pretty weird introduction to the NFL,” Herbert said.
profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/08/29/baltimore-ravens-jk-dobbins-injury-nfl-fmia-peter-king/