After throwing four interceptions in a 12-10 home loss to the Bears on Monday Night Football, Josh Dobbs could find himself in a backup role when the Vikings return from this week’s bye to play the Las Vegas Raiders on Dec. 10.
Minnesota head coach Kevin O’Connell was asked Monday night if he’s considering a quarterback change.
“We’re going to take a look, really evaluate the inventory of plays now we have now of Josh,” O’Connell said. “We got [Jaren Hall] back available to us and then Nick Mullens is available as well.”
But O’Connell wasn’t about to throw his quarterback, who has only been with the Vikings since Halloween, under the bus.
Look, I think what Josh Dobbs has really done coming in here on short notice and really going 2-2 in a stretch where, you know, a lot of people might’ve thought Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson being out, the deck’s stacked against us, that’s not the way this team thinks, it’s not the way we operate, it’s not the way I operate,” he said.
“We’re trying to go out and win every football game we play. We’re going to evaluate what we’ve been able to do, things we need to get better at and we’ll take a look at what that looks like. Hopefully we’ll get [Justin Jefferson] back. He was close tonight and getting him back, any time you can infuse that into your offense it makes everybody around him better. We’ll take a look at everything. We got a lot of work to do during the bye.”
After Dobbs threw his fourth interception and the Vikings were trailing 9-3, backup quarterback Nick Mullens was warming up on the sidelines. O’Connell intimated that the only thing that might’ve prevented him from benching Dobbs for Mullens was that the Vikings forced and recovered a fumble just five plays later, so he stuck with Dobbs and that’s when Dobbs led the Vikings on a touchdown drive to take a 10-9 lead with 5:54 remaining.
“It started to get to the point where I was just trying to think almost what would give us a spark,” O’Connell admitted. “We got the sudden change on that turnover and then Josh took us down the field for a touchdown. As much as the turnovers absolutely cripple you offensively, I still thought Josh battled, no flinch and just kept playing and competing to try to help us win. I really credit him that. It’s tough to do on a night where you’ve turned the football over with some interceptions here and there, just to keep playing. This guy’s a competitor. I’m really proud the way he went out there on that drive, even overcoming the long foul ball to [Jordan Addison] and still moving the team down the field and making the big-time throw to T.J. for the touchdown.”
The “long foul ball” O’Connell mentioned was the deep ball down the left sideline that was thrown too far out of bounds for Addison to catch.
“It’s frustrating,” Dobbs said of his interceptions. “I acknowledge it, man. I’m frustrated with myself because it starts with me. I’ll be better from it. I’ll learn from every single one of them tonight and we’ll use it to build momentum into the next opportunity.”
