Justin Herbert burst out of the gates when he entered the NFL. He earned Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2020 and followed that up with a 5,000-yard Pro Bowl season in 2021. However, his progress has slowed significantly since then.
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Herbert had a decent year in 2022, but allowed the Jacksonville Jaguars to complete that embarrassing comeback on his Los Angeles Chargers in the Wild Card game. Injuries slowed him in 2023, before a new regime came to town and reinvigorated the QB in 2024. That season, he led the league in interception rate (0.6) and posted a career-high passer rating of 101.7.
Much of that success was thanks to new head coach Jim Harbaugh and offensive coordinator Greg Roman. And after seeing what Herbert is capable of in a more structured system, Roman now wants to open things up a bit more for his 6’6″ quarterback.
According to Dov Kleiman, Roman recently said he’s planning to take the training wheels off Herbert in the running game next season.
“I think we’ll see Justin Herbert use his legs a bit more this year. He can really affect the game with his legs. It creates so much stress on the defense when they have to defend that. That was off the table most of last year,” Roman said.
Scary: Chargers OC Greg Roman says QB Justin Herbert will run more this season 👀
“I think we’ll see Justin Herbert use his legs a bit more this year. He can really affect the game with his legs. It creates so much stress on the defense when they have to defend that. That was… pic.twitter.com/E4mvK5QFk3
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) June 26, 2025
Herbert is very tall, which has its pros and cons for a running QB. It allows him to pick up more speed with longer strides, but he’s also a much bigger target in the open field. His 4.7 speed and 4.46 in the 20-yard shuttle at the Combine in 2020 are both impressive for someone his size, so if he’s allowed to run, he should have success.
The important thing for Roman and the Chargers is to create safe situations for Herbert to run in. And when he’s scrambling, Herbert needs to play it safe more often than not. One extra yard in a regular-season game is not worth a cracked rib.
And it’s not like Herbert has never run around before in the NFL. Herbert has rushed for 1,217 yards since entering the league in 2020, which ranks him 10th across that span. His 293 carries are also 10th, so he’s been running more than your average QB. However, he has never had more than 306 rushing yards in a single season.
You might have guessed that career-high came last year, in Herbert’s first year in Roman’s run-heavy offense. Everywhere Roman has gone as an offensive coordinator in the NFL, strong rushing attacks have followed. But so have big rushing seasons for his QBs. In 2015-2016, Tyrod Taylor was Roman’s guy in Buffalo, and the QB responded with his two best rushing seasons (568 and 580), including his only Pro Bowl in 2015.
Before his stint in Buffalo, he had great success with Colin Kaepernick, and afterwards, Roman had perhaps his best stint with Lamar Jackson in Baltimore. It only makes sense that Justin Herbert would join the ranks of Roman’s true dual-threat QBs of years past.
