Even after the bye week, it doesn’t look like things are getting better for the Los Angeles Chargers anytime soon. Taking on their city rivals, the Los Angeles Rams, they were blown out 24-9.

It was once again an underwhelming outing in almost every facet of the game. But much of the ire was directed at superstar quarterback Justin Herbert. A lot of people went so far as to demand that the team bench him moving forward.

A Shocking Fall From Grace for Justin Herbert

Before the start of the season, the addition of Mike McDaniel as the offensive coordinator led many to believe the Chargers could make some real noise in the AFC. But they are winless through eight weeks, and the offense has been their biggest problem.

A ton of the blame has fallen directly on Herbert, who has been at or near the bottom of the league on PFN’s Quarterback Impact Metric for much of the season. That trend continued this week as well, with him remaining dead last.

Completing 24 of 32 passes for 257 yards would normally make for a solid outing, but Herbert also threw two costly interceptions that helped swing the game in the Rams’ favor. Those mistakes quickly became the focus of the postgame criticism.

“Would not be unreasonable to bench Justin Herbert,” ESPN’s Benjamin Solak admitted, before adding how unusual this turn of events was, “(I’ll take things I never thought I’d say for $1,000,000,000, Alex).”

His second interception of the day, though, is what left fans fuming. Throwing the ball directly to Trent McDuffie, the risk-to-reward ratio on that play was bizarre, and the Chargers paid the price.

“The Chargers should move to Trey Lance,”San Francisco 49ers analyst David Lombardi claimed, as Tyler Brooke declared, “Justin Herbert has been the worst starting QB in the league this season. And it’s not particularly close.”

Even his fans were starting to come around to accepting the possibility, as one social media influencer, ‘WyattzWorld,’ wrote, “I keep waiting for this Justin Herbert explosion to happen, but I’m starting to realize that we’re now in week 8, and he might just be really bad.”

But the indictment against Herbert grew even worse when Chargers podcaster Dan W. asked, “Is it too much to ask Justin Herbert to at least show us that he cares at this point?”

NFL writer John Frascella, too, didn’t mince words, as he exclaimed, “Remember when people actually thought Justin Herbert was good at football? He’s legit the worst quarterback in the game, he’s absolutely atrociously awful.”

It remains to be seen what the next steps will be for the Chargers, but a disastrous 2026 season has clearly changed the way many people view Herbert. Reversing that perception may not be easy, especially if the losses and mistakes continue to pile up.

If Lance is healthy enough to return from injured reserve, the Chargers could consider giving him opportunities down the stretch. With the season already spiraling, that would allow Los Angeles to evaluate another quarterback while reducing Herbert’s exposure to unnecessary punishment.