Hey there, I'm an Oregon alum who has watched every minute that Justin Herbert played for the Ducks. As a kid, I loved Marino, which lead me to have the Dolphins as my favorite team through childhood. In the post-Marino era, my Dolphins fandom has faded (as there was never a geographic or family connection), but I still pay closer attention to the team than to most others and hope they can turn things around and take down the Patriots. Having said all that, the fact that Herbert is a possibility for Miami motivated me to go from occasionally lurking here, to registering and posting.
So here are some Herbert thoughts from someone who is admittedly biased, but also can provide some information/context that may not have been posted here yet. I've watched every snap Oregon has played during his career and digested tons of information (both reported and unreported) about the team. Here is my take on the typical narratives you see out there nationally:
- He has elite physical traits. The arm talent is indeed very high end. In his first appearance as a skinny true freshman (ugly loss to Pac-champ Washington team), you could see the ball explode off his hand. The arm is legit and natural, plus his ball placement and touch improved each year of his career. He has excellent movement skills for a man his size and will use his legs to keep the chains moving (his senior year they only turned him loose on designed runs in big games late in the season and it was very effective when they did). He's not Cam Newton running the ball, but he will use his legs effectively.
-He isn't full of swagger, so he can't lead a locker room full of men. This one is more complicated. He is a cerebral guy and naturally on the quiet side, so as a true Freshman, he was definitely not a vocal leader. The narrative took on a life of it's own though during his sophomore year, gaining a ton a steam and staying power in large part because his second head coach, Willie Taggart, decided to try and publicly motivate him to become a more vocal leader and called him out in the media. This was a dick move that probably hurt Herbert's stock; though he has said it was all good for him long term, because the questions helped him push himself to grow as a person and QB. The combination of it being something that a head coach put out in the public and there being some underlying truth, made this a bigger narrative than it would have been for other similar players with a less rah-rah leadership style (a guy like Jalen Hurts never has his leadership questioned, even though he is also very quiet).
If you're looking for outspoken swagger, he's definitely not your guy, but he was universally respected by his Oregon teammates and was the unquestioned leader of the Oregon offense the past two seasons, including during times when coaches weren't around like summer workouts. It is possible he is "too humble," as he definitely has a tendency to defer to experience, though people close to the program say he's been plenty confident around his teammates/coaches during his junior and senior seasons. It's possible being humble and realistic in public (like saying he doesn't know for sure that he's ready to start day one since he's never seen the speed of the nfl game) might not be a trait you want in an NFL qb...or you could say this is a guy who has found a way to be extremely successful facing every major challenge he's faced in his life (on and off the field, where he was a 4.0 student), so maybe having this realistic point of view is how he processes challenges effectively (basically what people who know him say in his defense).
- He was good, but not great at Oregon. Two things here as an Oregon fan:
1. I don't totally disagree with this characterization, though I don't think it's particularly meaningful in his evaluation. What matters is how good he was compared to how good the other guys (Burrow, Tua, Love) would have been in the same situation. Obviously it's very hard to say, though I think with Burrow in particular, there's a really good argument that he looked significantly worse than Herbert when he was in a similar, or better, situation than him in 2018 at LSU. Tua is harder because his situation has always been off the charts and his play has been consistently elite as well. I'll just mention that I love Tua's game and wouldn't take anyone over him without the injury concerns. With them, I think it's pretty complicated and I don't envy teams having to make future altering decisions in that situation. Herbert played in three different systems, had a pretty conservative head coach/OC his last two seasons, and played with some sub-standard receiving groups (next point).
2. When people say he wasn't as good as he "should have been" at Oregon, they are under-emphasizing how poorly the Ducks' receivers played, particularly in 2018, but in 2019 as well. Some of it was injuries and youth, but a lot was just lack of talent and mistakes. In 2018, Oregon receivers had 52 drops, which equates to a 14% drop rate. For comparison, I found a graphic on SEC drop rates for '18 and Bama was 4.5% (14 drops), which is elite, but gives you an idea how bad 52 drops truly is. There were 8 dropped touchdown passes among the 52 and coaches said it was over 800 yards of drops. Now obviously, you expect some drops, so you wouldn't just add 800 yards and 8 TD's to his season stats, but it probably wouldn't be far off that with a normal drop rate, as many of those drops stopped drives and kept the team from scoring more points. In 2019, Oregon "only" had 35 drops, but that was still the most in the pac-12. In addition to all the drops, the Ducks receivers did not consistently get open, particularly against good defenses. When I think about what Justin Herbert would have looked like if he was throwing to guys like Chase, Jefferson, Jeudy, Ruggs, Smith, etc., I know it would have been silly and I'm pretty sure everyone would be talking about how he's such a winner, rather than questioning his intangibles.
In the end, I think any of the top four quarterbacks could end up having the best career and I wouldn't really be surprised (though I admittedly have watched Love far less than the other three). I do think Herbert is an excellent prospect, but as I said above, I love Tua's game as well, so if the Fins go with either one, I'll be very excited for the team's future.
I know this is a super long post and plenty of people won't bother to read it, but if you were one of the persistent ones who read all the way to the end, I hope it was worth your time. If you have any questions about Hebert from an Oregon perspective, feel free to ask.
