How Chargers’ Justin Herbert ‘blew Jim Harbaugh away’ in elevator incident

The relationship between Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert will be interesting to follow in Harbaugh’s first season with the Los Angeles Chargers. Harbaugh has already had phenomenal success with quarterbacks, and if the prayers of Chargers fans are answered, Herbert might finally be able to pull off a playoff victory.

Although the outcome will be determined on the field of play, Harbaugh, a notoriously idiosyncratic figure in the football world, found a way to congratulate Herbert on a bizarre off-field incident this week.

On Friday night, about a dozen players, along with Jeri Fouts, the wife of Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Fouts, were trapped together in a hotel elevator. The elevator remained stuck for two hours before firefighters were able to get people out through the ceiling and into another elevator.

A scary situation, to be sure, but Harbaugh turned the incident into a character assessment.

“You get into these situations, and it’s a test of will,” Harbaugh said. “I was proud of every single man and two women that were in that elevator. It’s a victory. You feel good about yourself. You were challenged. It was a test of will, and you get it down or you get it back up.”

As for Herbert, the quarterback, despite the alleged heat in the elevator, wasn’t very sweaty, which apparently impressed Harbaugh.

“It was hot,” Harbaugh said. “Every single person coming out of the elevator was sweating and some of them even had their shirts off. Justin Herbert had his hair a little wet, but his shirt was completely dry. That’s another thing that blew me away.”

Harbaugh also said that some people in the elevator praised Herbert for his behavior in the elevator, saying he was a “leader” and a “rock” who “kept everyone calm.”

Can Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert lead the Chargers to the playoffs?

Jim Harbaugh is entering his first season as head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. A former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and the University of Michigan football program, Harbaugh reached the Super Bowl with Colin Kaepernick at quarterback in SF and won a national championship earlier this year with Minnesota Vikings quarterback JJ McCarthy at the helm of the Wolverines.

Justin Herbert, who the Chargers drafted with the sixth overall pick in 2020, is entering his fifth NFL season. A figure who often finds himself at the center of debates about his play, Herbert has nonetheless proven to be a relatively consistent presence with the Chargers, who have made just one playoff appearance and failed to win more than 10 regular-season games under Herbert.

Last season, Herbert broke a finger on his throwing hand in December, ending his season prematurely. At the time, the Chargers were 5-8 and Herbert threw for 3,134 yards and 20 touchdowns.

Harbaugh will be Herbert’s third NFL coach; after a year with Anthony Lynn, Herbert played for Brandon Staley, who was fired shortly after Herbert’s season-ending injury last year.