Josh Dobbs was nine days shy of 4 years old when the Atlanta Falcons ended the Minnesota Vikings’ historic 1998-99 season. He grew up in the Atlanta area watching Michael Vick and Matt Ryan quarterback on the Falcons, but on Sunday his family was in the stands to watch him play quarterback against his hometown team – five days after being traded from Arizona to the Vikings.
Dobbs’ week was so rushed that he barely knew anyone’s name on the team. And outside of a couple of pregame tosses, he and Brandon Powell had never played together before and they wound up connecting for the game-winning touchdown with 22 seconds left in the game.
“That’s for next week,” Dobbs joked about learning teammates’ names.
The winning touchdown pass to Powell was a play that Dobbs had never ran before, but if it was on head coach Kevin O’Connell’s call sheet, Dobbs was able to recall it and therefore make it work in live action on the field.
“That was my first time repping the play but it was in the game plan,” Dobbs said.
O’Connell was amazed that Dobbs, a certified rocket scientist, did what he did.
“I know he’s very, very smart, but I can tell you that what he was able to do in really five days time was as impressive of what I’ve seen a quarterback do,” O’Connell said.
The coach added, “I would not discount Josh Dobbs’ ability to come in here and do something that I don’t think many quarterbacks in our league could do.”
The turnaround from being traded on Tuesday to arriving in Minnesota Tuesday night and then focusing 100% on getting ready to face the Falcons was so intense that O’Connell wasn’t even aware that Dobbs was from the Atlanta area until a reporter made note of it during the postgame press conference.
As heroic as Dobbs was in his debut, it wouldn’t have been possible without assistant coaches preparing him during the week while O’Connell spent most of his time readying rookie Jaren Hall for his first career start.
It was a madhouse after Kirk Cousins was lost for the season with an Achilles injury. The Vikings had 48 hours after Cousins’ injury to trade for Dobbs and at the same time they had to prepare a rookie fifth-round pick to make his first NFL start. Dobbs, remember, was the backup for the Atlanta game.
But when Hall went down with a concussion in the first quarter, Dobbs got the call and it forced O’Connell to essentially narrate each play to Dobbs through their headsets as Dobbs relayed the play in the huddle and then analyzed the defense while monitoring the play clock.
“If you could hear the headset, there was a lot going on,” Dobbs explained “We had a lot going on. But it’s great, obviously Kevin played quarterback so he knows what I’m going through. So he’s able to communicate effectively, like, ‘Hey, this is what you’re looking at, this is what you got on this side of the page, this is what you got on this side of the page.’ He’s able to talk in lingos that I’ve come from to be able to simplify it for me.”
Dobbs said being told five days before a test that the subject matter would be in French instead of Spanish.
“It’s like if you were taking Spanish all year and you showed up and Wednesday somebody told you – you’re taking AP Spanish – and somebody told you you’ve got an AP French exam on Sunday. Someone’s going to talk to you in Spanish and translate it to the French, so that’s kind of what was going on out there,” said Dobbs.
“There was a lot of communication, but I’m able to process a lot of information and be able to react on it and not let it handcuff myself and my play so it was good. It was good to be able to hear what [O’Connell] was saying and as I’m processing what the defense is giving me and then go out and just play good football.”
Not a bad debut for the rocket scientist quarterback.
“I hope people understand what Josh Dobbs was able to accomplish was very, very special and I’m very proud of him,” O’Connell said.
If Sunday was the appetizer, imagine how good the main course might be when Dobbs knows the entire play book and isn’t playing without star left tackle Christian Darrisaw and all-pro wide receiver Justin Jefferson.
