Justin Herbert has a fracture in his non-throwing left hand and will undergo surgery on Monday, Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said postgame.
It’s unclear if Herbert will miss any time.
The Chargers play the Eagles in Week 14.
Herbert injured his left hand on a 1-yard scramble after Jeremy Chinn slammed the quarterback to the ground. Herbert’s hand banged against the turf.
He threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Quentin Johnston on the next play, giving the Chargers a 7-0 lead after their first possession.
Herbert missed eight plays in the training room, with Trey Lance replacing him, before returning to the game with 11:56 remaining in the second quarter.
He went 15-of-20 for 151 yards with two touchdowns and an interception in the 31-14 win over the Raiders.
Dave Caldwell is heading back to Florida.
The former Jaguars G.M. has been hired as the University of Florida’s G.M. of football operations, via ESPN.com.
Tulane coach Jon Sumrall, as expected, will be the Gators’ new head coach.
Caldwell served as the Jacksonville G.M. from 2013 through 2020, building the team that nearly secured a berth in Super Bowl LII. Since 2021, he has worked as a personnel executive with the Eagles. Philadelphia G.M. Howie Roseman went to college at Florida.
Florida fired Billy Napier last month. Sumrall emerged as the favorite after a flirtation with Lane Kiffin, who shifted his focus to LSU.
After sleepwalking through the first two-and-a-half quarters of Friday’s game, the Eagles’ offense woke up. And the momentum swung fully in Philly’s direction after an interception on Chicago’s next drive.
Down 10-9, the Eagles had the ball at the Bears’ 36. A 15-yard gain from running back Saquon Barkley gave the home team first and 10 from the 21.
Two plays and nine yards later, the Eagles faced third and one. It was time to trot out the tush push. And the end result was a fumble that the Bears recovered.
“I was hoping that [forward progress] was stopped, but it wasn’t,” quarterback Jalen Hurts told reporters after the 24-15 game. “It was kind of similar to the New York game except that they just didn’t blow the whistle as soon. That’s not to point the finger at anyone else. I mean, I have to hold onto the ball. It definitely presents itself as an issue and it always has. It’s just never gotten us and so today it got us and it’s something that we and I need to tighten up.”
Does the tush push sometimes create issues with ball security?
“It’s been like that for a very long time,” Hurts said.
He then was asked whether defenses have figured out how to stop the Eagles’ signature play.
“It’s becoming tougher and tougher,” Hurt said. “But ultimately, me holding onto the ball, that’s something I can control.”
The fact that defenses are doing a better job of stopping the play could take some steam out of the seemingly inevitable renewed push to get it out of the game. If the Eagles make an early playoff exit, that could make a new assault on the play even less of a priority.
If, in the end, the effort to get rid of the tush push is abandoned, it will confirm the simple reality that it was never about safety or aesthetics or difficulty of officiating or anything but taking away from the Eagles something that no other team could stop or replicate.
Trailing the Bears by 15 with 3:10 to play on Friday, the Eagles scored a touchdown. They had a big decision to make.
Kick the extra point and go down by eight, or go for two and trail by seven (if successful) or nine (if not). The Eagles went for two, and they didn’t get it.
After the game, coach Nick Sirianni addressed the decision to go for two when he did.
“Obviously, we had to get one at one point,” Sirianni told reporters. “We had to get a two-point conversion at one point. I’ve done a lot of studies on that in my notes down nine. I’m always going to go for a two in that scenario, so I followed the plan that — again, I don’t try to wing anything in situational football. That’s what I wanted to do. That’s in my notes from my studies in the past, and that’s what we did.
“Now, the thought behind it is you want to know exactly what you need right there. If you go down seven, then obviously it’s a one-score game. If you go down eight, I know it’s a one-score game as well. That’s what we do in that scenario. I’ll always go back and look and reconsider things. Had three timeouts there to be able to potentially kick it deep there if we did get it. Obviously, we didn’t in that particular case, but at some point, you’re going to need it and I always want to know early what I need going forward.”
Another factor is the wind. Kicker Jake Elliott had already missed an extra point. The 33-year, one-point kick is never a gimme, especially on a blustery day.
Then there’s the possibility of going for two, getting it, scoring another touchdown, and going for two again, with the possibility of bypassing overtime.
The bigger issue than the decision was the play. Receiver A.J. Brown had just caught a touchdown pass, his second of the day. He was lined up wide to the right, with single coverage. The no-brainer move was to throw a fade to Brown and let him go get it.
That’s always the most important aspect of the two-point decision. If you go for it, you need to have a good play. A play that will work. On Friday, the play that was called and executed did not work.
The Bears ran for 281 yards in Friday’s win over the Eagles, and both of their running backs, with running back Kyle Monangai gaining 130 yards and D’Andre Swift gaining 125 yards. That doesn’t happen without great offensive line play.
Bears coach Ben Johnson made a point after the game of mentioning left tackle Ozzy Trapilo, left guard Joe Thuney, center Drew Dallman, right guard Jonah Jackson and right tackle Darnell Wright.
“It doesn’t happen without that offensive line,” Johnson said. “You can’t say enough about Ozzy and Joe and Drew Dallman, and Jonah and Darnell. Those guys, they were huge for us. Really proud of them.”
On a windy day in Philadelphia, Bears quarterback Caleb Williams completed just 17 of 36 passes for 154 yards, and Johnson said afterward that he should have stuck with the running game even more than he did.
“I look down and I see 36 attempts and I go, ‘Shoot, I probably called too many pass plays in this game,’ especially with how we were running it, so that’s an area that I can be better at,” Johnson said.
But in a cold and blustery game, the big guys upfront can make all the difference, and that’s what Johnson wanted to call attention to after the game: “I can’t say enough good things about our offensive line today.”
