Jim Harbaugh and the Chargers made their priorities clear after clinching a playoff spot last week. <\/p>\n
The Chargers are choosing health over wild-card seeding heading into Sunday\u2019s regular season finale against the Broncos.<\/p>\n
Speaking with reporters on Monday, Harbaugh announced star quarterback Justin Herbert would sit out against Bo Nix and the Broncos. Sunday\u2019s game is set to kickoff at 1 p.m. PT from Mile High Stadium in Denver, CO.<\/p>\n
Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh announced Monday Justin Herbert will not play against the Broncos on Sunday. AP<\/p>\n
Trey Lance will start for the Chargers and DJ Uiagalelei will be elevated from the practice squad to the backup role. While the game means little for the Los Angeles, the Broncos can lock up the AFC\u2019s No. 1 seed with a win.<\/p>\n
\u201cHealth and winning. That\u2019s it,\u201d Harbaugh said. \u201cThere\u2019s no way to predict. We\u2019re going on the road, first round. All potential teams would be good, and we\u2019ll get ourselves ready for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Herbert suffered a fracture in his non-throwing left hand during the Chargers\u2019 Week 13 game on Nov. 30 against the Raiders. <\/p>\n
He underwent surgery and returned to play eight days later against the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles. He has yet to miss a game since the injury, wearing a protective cast and glove on his left hand.<\/p>\n
Trey Lance will start in Justin Herbert\u2019s place on Sunday. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
Despite many analysts believing Herbert should be mentioned in the MVP conversation \u2014 not a true contender \u2014 missing Sunday\u2019s game would be the smartest option for Los Angeles.\u00a0The Chargers signal-caller has been battered all season behind a makeshift offensive line.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles entered the season with arguably the best tackle duo in the NFL in Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt. But Slater suffered a torn patella tendon before the season started and missed the whole year. Alt moved to the left side and filled in admirably, but suffered a season-ending right high-ankle sprain on Sunday, Nov. 2 against Tennessee.<\/p>\n
Justin Herbert will sit out after the Chargers lost to the Texans over the weekend. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
However, Herbert isn\u2019t expected to be the only starter to miss Sunday\u2019s showdown. Harbaugh also mentioned that other starters \u201cwith the most bruises\u201d won\u2019t play as well.<\/p>\n
For the Chargers, the game against Denver could\u2019ve been huge if Los Angeles handled business against the Texans this past Saturday. Instead, they suffered a 20-16 defeat.<\/p>\n
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A win over the Texans would\u2019ve set up a regular season finale where the winner of the Chargers-Broncos game would\u2019ve won the AFC West title and presumably the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs.<\/p>\n
Now there\u2019s very little to gain from a victory for Harbaugh and the Chargers, who are making it clear that they\u2019d rather enter the postseason healthy than battle for wild card seeding.<\/p>\n
Presuming the Bills (vs. NY Jets) and Patriots (vs. Miami) both win on Sunday as expected, Los Angeles will travel east to face the Patriots in the opening round of the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jim Harbaugh and the Chargers made their priorities clear after clinching a playoff spot last week. The Chargers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2136,12344,2246,9,11,10,22,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-84191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-justin-herbert","10":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}