“I Hope Chargers Fans Don’t See This”: Ryan Fitzpatrick Warns Analyst About Justin Herbert’s Spot in Power Rankings

Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert is one of the NFL’s most polarizing players. The fifth-year pro recently broke Peyton Manning’s NFL record for passing yards through five seasons in a 40-7 victory over the New England Patriots. He also locked up his second-ever playoff berth with the win.

At the same time, Herbert has not dominated statistically this year like he has in seasons before. Under Jim Harbaugh, he has predominantly operated as a game manager more than a true superstar talent. Many Chargers fans feel he is still one of the league’s best quarterbacks and yet he doesn’t get the respect he deserves.

Ryan Fitzpatrick has seen the lengths Los Angeles’ fanbase will go to defend their signal-caller. So when Dan Pizzuta of The 33rd Team released his most recent QB Power Rankings and had Herbert at 15th, Fitzpatrick knew his new peer could be in trouble. He told him, “I hope Chargers fans don’t see this” on Twitter/X.

Ironically, Fitzpatrick’s repost extended the reach of Pizzuta’s list. That’s both helpful for Pizzuta’s impressions and harmful for his chances of avoiding the Chargers’ faithful. Viewers of the original tweet containing Pizzuta’s rankings and Fitzpatrick’s response blasted Herbert’s positioning. His placement behind Kyler Murray was a major issue to many. Others took issue with Pizzuta’s entire order of players.

Fortunately, Pizzuta did have some supporters amongst his critics to ease any potential worry about his hierarchy.

You’ll never please everyone when you do Power Rankings. No matter how good or bad a team has been, fans will almost always defend their quarterback to the bitter end. Pizzuta is aware of this, so he hopefully isn’t letting his naysayers affect him.