INGLEWOOD, CA —  Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers’ 31-14 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders didn’t come without a scare.

Herbert left the game briefly in the first half due to a fracture in his left hand. He returned to the game with a white glove on the injured hand.

“He’s as tough as they come. Taped it up with a glove,” Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said. “He played a great game.”

Sunday’s victory improved the Chargers (8-4) to 4-0 in the AFC West, and they currently occupy fifth place in the AFC playoff picture.

However, Herbert’s health looms large. Herbert is scheduled to undergo a procedure to repair his left hand on Monday, a week before the Chargers host the Philadelphia Eagles. The Chargers quarterback is optimistic he’ll be able to play in the prime-time game.

Herbert’s been under constant pressure this season as the Chargers adjust to life without starting offensive tackles Rashawn Slater (knee) and Joe Alt (ankle), who are both out for the year.

Herbert faced pressure an NFL-high 188 times entering Week 13, according to Pro Football Focus. He was sacked three times and hit another four times Sunday.  

The Chargers can ill-afford to be without Herbert for any duration if they hope to get into the playoffs. Los Angeles is currently second in the AFC West behind the Denver Broncos (9-2). Surpassing Denver in the division appears unlikely, so a wild-card spot seems to be the team’s most realistic path to the postseason. Sunday’s win gave the Chargers a 61% chance to reach the postseason as the calendar flips to the December stretch run.

However, the Chargers are approaching a daunting five-game stretch to close the regular season as they face the Eagles, Kansas City Chiefs, Dallas Cowboys, Houston Texans and Broncos to end the year. All five opponents are .500 or better and in the playoff hunt. Week 13’s tilt was a game the Chargers needed to have as they embark on a five-game gauntlet.

‘We got some great teams coming up, all playoff caliber teams,’ Chargers safety Derwin James said. “This was a big win moving forward. And any time you can stay 4-0 on the division, you give yourself a chance with five games left.”

Chargers players know what’s on the horizon, beginning with the Eagles, but they insist they aren’t looking too far ahead.

“For us to be able to come away with a win (Sunday) was big for us,” Herbert said. “I think it’s just week by week. We got to do our job. Especially when we when we play on Sundays, or whether we’re playing on Monday. All we can control is our attitude, our effort, and how we take care of business. Anything outside of that is out of our control. You can monitor it, but you can’t do too much to change it.”

The Chargers did “take care of business” against the lowly Raiders (2-10). But it came with an injury scare. The Chargers’ most indispensable player needs a fracture in his left non-throwing hand repaired, and questions about the team’s ability to protect him are bound to persist.  

All the while, the next handful of games will determine their playoff fate.

Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Tyler Dragon on X @TheTylerDragon.

Treylon Burks, take a bow.

The Washington Commanders receiver entered his name into the catch of the year conversation on ‘Sunday Night Football’ in Week 13, hauling in an unbelievable touchdown grab against the Denver Broncos.

Like most things this time of year, seeing is believing. Take a look:

With a corner fade in the end zone, Marcus Mariota lofted one up for Burks, who made the one-handed catch despite falling backwards and taking contact from Broncos cornerback, Riley Moss – who was, fittingly, ‘Mossed’ on the play.

It was an exclamation point on Burks’ second career touchdown and his first since 2022.

The play had a remarkable resemblance to the famous Odell Beckham Jr. catch for the New York Giants on ‘Sunday Night Football’ on Nov. 23, 2014. Nearly 11 years ago to the day, Burks proved that history does repeat itself sometimes.

Beckham was quick to point out the connection on X, even including that Burks is wearing the same No. 13.

Of course, Beckham’s catch was on a longer throw, and he snagged it after the ball was beyond his head, but that doesn’t take away from the degree of difficulty on this one.

While SEC rivalries have been all the rage over Thanksgiving weekend, this Arkansas Razorback and LSU Tiger can share a moment in the spotlight.

After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

COPPER MOUNTAIN, Colo. — Mikaela Shiffrin’s skiing greatness doesn’t come from the wins or the records.

It comes from the quiet moments in training, when she’s obsessing over the tiniest of details and repeating a drill over and over to perfect her technique. Without those moments, the ones only her team sees, you wouldn’t get the big moments the whole world sees.

‘The attention to detail, that’s where she’s got it,’ Karin Harjo, Shiffrin’s head coach, said after Shiffrin won the slalom at Copper Mountain for her 104th World Cup victory.

‘What’s great is that she’s getting into this place, especially in slalom, where she’s really comfortable and she’s bringing the training scheme to racing,’ Harjo continued. ‘And that speed is something that I think for the world to see is great because it’s pushing the level of sport, showing what is possible, and I think that’s one of the coolest things that you can ever do.’

It may seem as if Shiffrin’s entire career has occurred in rarefied air. A World Cup winner at 17. The youngest to win the Olympic slalom. A five-time overall champion. A two-time Olympic gold medalist. Winner of a record 17 World Cups in a single season. Most World Cup wins of any skier, male or female.

But Shiffrin is human, and her current dominance came out of that frailty.

It was a year ago this weekend that Shiffrin suffered a puncture wound in her abdomen in a crash during the second run of the giant slalom at the World Cup in Killington, Vermont. She would miss the next two months of the season and, even after she returned, struggled with PTSD about the GS. Slalom was safer, but she was still fighting to regain her rhythm and momentum.

The offseason gave Shiffrin a chance to reset and immerse herself in the process, her favorite thing about skiing.

Some people ski for the medals or fame or money. Shiffrin skis for the joy she gets from making good turns and figuring out how to squeeze another tenth of a second or two out of herself.

‘I am so obsessed with the feeling that I get in between the start and the finish when it’s good,’ Shiffrin said Sunday. ‘It’s just such a beautiful feeling, and when I can improve that a little bit, that’s motivating. The second run was the motivating thing for me. And then to do it and to anticipate it, to visualize it and then to execute it and to actually get to the bottom and see that it was indeed well done, that’s the best feeling.’

That feeling feeds her confidence. And her confidence feeds her skiing.

She talked after the first run of being able to trust her slalom skiing. She hasn’t had a lot of time training slalom of late, but what she did have was solid and that allows her to trust that the work she’s put in will carry over onto the race course.

‘She’s found a place in which she can start to push again,’ said Paula Moltzan, who has been skiing with Shiffrin since they were teenagers.

‘I think after the crash in GS, she lacked confidence. She could clearly still win, but you just see that confidence coming back into her every turn, every race,’ Moltzan said. ‘That second run, the conditions are really tough, it’s a hometown crowd and she just handles everything with such grace. It’s pretty inspiring.’

The wins, the results — they just reinforce that it’s pushing herself in training that matters. It’s that constant challenge of making her turns just a tad quicker, just a bit tighter that’s her superpower.

‘Everybody talks about momentum, and really momentum is just an action or force that leads to the next step,’ Harjo said. ‘And so we’re always looking forward and taking the next step and working hard. Results in the past, both successful and not successful, happen. But we keep moving forward.’

Shiffrin is still trying to replicate what she’s doing in slalom in GS, which is no surprise given the trauma of last season. But she knows she is getting closer.

Though she finished 14th in the GS on Saturday, she was able to make adjustments from the first run to the second. After being 18th in the first run, she was 10th in the second, and was briefly atop the leaderboard.

‘It was another step,’ Harjo said. ‘I think sometimes people forget the mental side, how long it takes to come back from that. They have an expectation that she’s just going to dominate everything.’

Shiffrin isn’t worried about meeting other peoples’ expectations or even being back on the podium in GS or racing super-G. She is searching for that sweet spot in her training, because she knows once she finds it, it’ll be there on race day, too.

‘It’s going to just continue to take time,’ Shiffrin said. ‘But that’s a really motivating thing.’

Because it’s those little things that make her many, many great things possible.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.

Alex Golesh to Auburn may have gone under the radar considering Lane Kiffin grabbed the spotlight and Florida had Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer gloss its new hire.

Golesh led South Florida to a 9-3 record this season, the program’s most wins in eight years. Over his three-year tenure at USF, Golesh went 23-15. He took over a Bulls program that had gone just 4-29 in the three seasons before he was hired.

Under the 41-year-old Golesh, the Bulls finished among the top 35 FBS teams in scoring offense in each of his three seasons. This season, it averaged 43 points per game, the fourth-best mark in the FBS.

Here’s who we grade the Tigers’ hire:

Grade: B-

Auburn needs help on offense to pull it out of yearslong rut, and Golesh shows some chops for the assignment. He’s worked inside the SEC and was Josh Heupel’s offensive coordinator when Tennessee toppled Alabama in 2022 and the Vols’ up-tempo spread system led the nation in offense.

Golesh did a solid job at South Florida in his first coaching gig. The Bulls were 1-11 the year before he arrived. By this season, Golesh’s Year 3, the Bulls upset Florida and went 9-3. They fizzled a bit in the second half of the schedule. USF enjoys an advantage as one of the best-resourced programs in the American Conference, and it’s located in enviable recruiting territory.

Golesh can’t expect such a head-start on his SEC peers while at Auburn, and USF fans were appropriately disappointed Golesh couldn’t get this year’s team to the American Conference championship game, after peaking early in wins against Boise State and Florida.

Golesh is a more unproven hire than Auburn’s past two, but after Bryan Harsin and Hugh Freeze failed miserably, you could argue it’s worth taking a shot on a rising 41-year-old talent.

The up-tempo spread system Golesh is trained in has become less novel inside the SEC in recent years. Golesh will join Heupel, Lane Kiffin and Jeff Lebby as coaches who operate a version of this offense. Does that increase in familiarity sacrifice some of the advantage Tennessee enjoyed while Golesh was there? Perhaps.

He also must prove himself as a recruiter while going toe-to-toe with the likes of Kirby Smart, Kalen DeBoer and others in blue-chip battles.

Golesh is a bit of a gamble, but not a total Hail Mary, and he’s a hopeful choice after the retread shot with Freeze flopped.

The Vancouver Whitecaps will play in their first MLS Cup after defeating San Diego FC, 3-1, in the Western Conference final on Saturday, Nov. 29.

Brian White — Vancouver’s leading goal-scorer during the regular season — had a brace in the win at San Diego’s Snapdragon Stadium.

The Whitecaps’ reward as the Western Conference’s representative in MLS Cup is a showdown with Lionel Messi and Inter Miami, which easily dispatched New York City FC in the Eastern Conference final. The 2025 MLS Cup will be held at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Saturday, Dec. 6 (2:30 p.m. ET on Apple TV and FOX).

Reaching MLS Cup is the latest milestone in what has been a monumental season under first-year head coach Jesper Sørensen. Earlier this year, Vancouver played in the Concacaf Champions Cup final, losing to Cruz Azul of Liga MX. Vancouver eliminated Messi and Inter Miami in the Concacaf Champions Cup semifinals. The Whitecaps also won a fourth consecutive Canadian Championship.

Vancouver also is the first Canada-based MLS club since Toronto FC in 2019 to reach MLS Cup.

San Diego FC was aiming to become the first MLS expansion team to reach the league final since the Chicago Fire won MLS Cup in 1998. Instead, that quest fell two wins short of unprecedented championship glory.

Inter Miami and the Vancouver Whitecaps will be the 20th and 21st different clubs to appear in MLS Cup.

Vancouver Whitecaps vs. San Diego FC Western Conference final highlights

When is MLS Cup 2025?

• Date and time: Saturday, Dec. 6 at 2:30 p.m. ET
• Location: Chase Stadium, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• TV and streaming: FOX and Apple TV

USA TODAY Sports’ 48-page special edition commemorates 30 years of Major League Soccer, from its best players to key milestones and championship dynasties to what exciting steps are next with the World Cup ahead. Order your copy today!