Joshua Palmer shares untold story on critical touchdown play in season finale against Raiders

The amount of preparation NFL teams go through can be truly staggering, a fact Joshua Palmer highlighted Monday with a previously untold story about the Chargers’ Week 18 loss at Las Vegas.

One of the most memorable moments of that night came when Palmer caught a 23-yard touchdown pass from Justin Herbert to convert fourth-and-21 in the final five minutes of regulation.

Palmer said the play was one the coaches put in during training camp … and never mentioned again until months later.

“We repped that play probably earlier in fall camp,” Palmer said. “We just put it in like, ‘Hey, when in doubt, we’re going to run this play.’ Then we never talked about it again until that moment.”

Palmer said Herbert first called the play in the huddle and then made a point to refresh everyone’s memory because so much time had passed.

“It took us a second because we didn’t expect it,” Palmer said. “But we’d never been in that situation before — fourth-and-21. Once he said it, he kind of like reminded everybody what the play was.”

The resulting score was part of the Chargers’ epic comeback to force overtime in a game they’d eventually lose 35-32, knocking them from the playoffs.