Herbert has played in 59 career games: 58 regular season games and 1 playoff game.
So in slightly more than 10% of his career games, the Chargers score 30 or more points and lose. Those specific games were:
- 10-4-2020 31-38 loss to TB
- 11-1-2020 30-31 loss to DEN
- 1-9-2022 32-35 loss to LV
- 1-14-2023 30-31 loss to JAX (playoff)
- 9-10-2023 34-36 loss to MIA
- 11-12-2023 38-41 loss to DET
This is obviously not accounting for defensive scores, short fields, etc. but is instead just a simple observation.
For comparison's sake, I looked at Tom Brady. He's played a long time, right? So surely he would have a bunch of these games, too.
Brady played in 383 career games: 335 regular season games and 48 playoff games. In those games, Brady's team scored 30+ points and lost just nine times, or just over 2%. Those specific games were:
- 1-21-2007 34-38 loss to IND (playoff)
- 11-15-2009 — 34-35 loss to IND
- 9-25-2011 — 31-34 loss to BUF
- 9-23-2012 — 30-31 loss to BAL
- 12-16-2012 — 34-41 loss to SF
- 10-1-2017 — 30-33 loss to CAR
- 2-4-2018 33-41 loss to PHI (playoff)
- 12-9-2018 — 33-34 loss to MIA
- 10-2-2022 — 31-41 loss to KC
I also quickly looked at some of the best current QBs just to get a sense of what Herbert's contemporaries experience:
- Joe Burrow has had 3 such games (all regular season, 2 in his abbreviated rookie year) of 58 games total, ~5%
- Josh Allen has had 4 such games (3 regular season, 1 in the famous KC playoff loss) of 94 games total, ~4%
- Tua Tagovailoa has never once scored 30 points and lost in 45 career games (though I don't think he started/finished all of them)
- Jalen Hurts has had 2 such games (1 regular season, 1 in last year's Super Bowl) of 58 games total, ~3.5%
- Patrick Mahomes has had 8 such games (7 regular season, 1 playoffs) of 103 games total, ~8%... these were pretty prevalent (relatively speaking) early in Mahomes career but are rarer over the last few years as KC's defense has really emerged
- Yesterday was Lamar Jackson's second-ever game scoring 30+ and losing out of 84 games he was involved, ~2% (though he didn't start in all of them)
In conclusion: Fire Brandon Staley
Also note: It's late and I'm just counting these on pro-football-reference; I may have messed up the count or the math!