The winding, wonderful path of Vikings QB Joshua Dobbs

[HappyViking]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/11/17/josh-dobbs-vikings-nasa-quarterback/
Roethlisberger quotes on Dobbs in the article:

“He’s
a good football player, and you’re seeing it,” Roethlisberger said. “I
felt bad, because he kept going to bad football teams and never getting a
chance. It’s fun that people are getting to see what we always saw.”
“I hope with his success,” Roethlisberger added, chuckling, “he still returns my text messages.”

[Guest]

The
Minnesota Vikings’ offense includes plays coaches refer to as “deep
cuts.” They can be deployed in any game and are so ingrained that they
need not be installed and practiced each week — “always alive,” in
coaches’ parlance. Minnesota relies on deep cuts when operating its
two-minute offense. Every Vikings offensive player should know them,
unless he is a quarterback who arrived four days before kickoff and was
given a backup’s preparation.

Two
Sundays ago, the singular life of Joshua Dobbs funneled to that
singular moment. He had learned some of his teammates’ names and parts
of the Vikings’ offense as he quarterbacked an NFL team to a four-point
deficit with 2:08 remaining. Quarterbacks Coach Chris O’Hara grabbed a
whiteboard he hadn’t previously known was kept on the sideline. He drew
one deep cut using circles for wideouts, then erased it and drew
another. Circles, erase. Circles, erase. Amid the bedlam of an NFL
sideline, Dobbs downloaded chunks of Minnesota’s two-minute offense.
“I’ve never done that before,” O’Hara said.

In
the moments that followed, Minnesota discovered a new folk hero. He was
a quarterback who bounced between benches and practice squads for the
first six years of his career. He was an aerospace engineering major who
graduated from Tennessee with a 4.0 GPA and interned for NASA. He was a
beloved teammate with the interpersonal skills to explain rockets to
football players and football to rocket scientists.
Dobbs
made his first career start in December at age 27, nine days after the
Tennessee Titans signed him off the Detroit Lions’ practice squad. A
two-game cameo with the Titans earned him a chance to begin this season
as the starter in Arizona. The Vikings traded for him Oct. 31, two days
after they lost franchise pillar Kirk Cousins to a season-ending
Achilles’ tendon tear. Five days later, after Dobbs entered in the first
quarter for injured rookie Jaren Hall and received a crunchtime
sideline tutorial, he led an 11-play touchdown drive that delivered a
victory his coaches and teammates would remember always.
Dobbs
owns a distinction that required his blend of intellect, buoyancy and
diligence: He is the second quarterback in NFL history to start for
three different franchises in a calendar year and the first to do so
with three weeks or less of preparation with each team.
“This
has never happened in the history of the league,” Dobbs’s agent, Mike
McCartney, said. “It’s not like you go to the library and say, ‘How do I
handle this?’ He’s the one who’s writing the book.”

In
Dobbs’s second start for the Vikings, a stunning notion emerged: The
NFL’s brainiest and most iterant quarterback might also be a burgeoning
star. Dobbs shredded the formidable New Orleans Saints’ defense in a
27-19 victory with athletic scrambles and pinpoint passes. He completed
23 of 34 attempts for 268 yards and a touchdown and ran eight times for
44 yards and another touchdown, a spinning, juking, leaping display that
left Coach Kevin O’Connell slack-jawed
on the sideline. Sunday night against the Denver Broncos, Dobbs will
lead the seventh franchise he’s played for as the unquestioned starter
of a playoff contender.

[Guest]

“I
understood my journey might be a little unique,” Dobbs told reporters
this week in Minnesota. “Each stop, each opportunity, my role has grown.
I recognized that about a year ago around this time. I kind of accepted
that was going to be my journey. Whatever opportunity was thrown my
way, no matter how big or small, I was going to make the most of it.”
Learning
an NFL game plan on the fly is an incomprehensible task, and Dobbs may
be the one person on Earth perfectly suited for it. In Dobbs’s view, it
requires problem-solving in real time, repeating processes and applying
multiple principles across different situations. He is expert at that
kind of thinking in two fields.
“There’s definitely some synergy,” Dobbs said. “Engineering and quarterback have a lot of crossover in the mental aspect.”

Joshua Dobbs stands with the director of Kennedy Space Engineering, Scott Colloredo. (Courtesy of NASA)

The ‘Passtronaut’

One
thing Scott Colloredo does when he is not sending rockets into space is
root for Tennessee football. Colloredo is the director of Kennedy Space
Center engineering and a UT alum. In the mid-2010s, Dobbs astonished
him from afar: The Volunteers quarterback who won SEC player of the year
in 2017 also crushed one of the school’s most difficult majors.

“Anytime
somebody has a 4.0 in aerospace engineering, it’s a big deal,”
Colloredo said. “When they’re playing major college football, it’s even
more of an amazing deal.”
In
2019, Colloredo contacted Dobbs on LinkedIn. Dobbs responded
immediately, and their conversation led to an internship, supported by
the NFL Players Association, in 2020.
Dobbs
worked in what NASA labels the “instrumentation group” focused on
“expiration ground systems” for the Artemis I mission, an uncrewed test
flight that launched in November 2022. Dobbs’s group, Colloredo said,
monitored launchpads by studying hazardous gases, flow rates,
temperatures and structural defections. Simple terms: Dobbs helped make
sure nothing went haywire on the launchpad. “We threw him right into the
fire,” Colloredo said.
When
Dobbs signed with the Cleveland Browns in 2022, NASA’s Glenn Research
Center reached out to him. Dobbs volunteered in engagement and outreach,
helping NASA reach a young, sports-obsessed audience. He also toured
the center and “definitely geeked out on our testing facility,” Glenn
communications director Kristen Parker said.
After
Dobbs’s first Vikings start, Glenn Research Center made a social media
post nicknaming Dobbs the “Passtronaut” that included a picture of Dobbs
in full spacesuit. By the center’s accounting, the post reached 6.8
million people.

“He
can bridge the gap between sports and aerospace engineering,” Parker
said. “I have not met too many people who are good at explaining on a
basic level the type of work we do here at NASA. But then to also be in
the sports world, it’s a one-of-a-kind type of skill set. He could
easily do either, and that’s crazy.”
The
vernacular used at NASA often overwhelms newcomers. NASA’s engineers
use distinct acronyms and lingo, “almost like a different language,”
Colloredo said. When Dobbs’s bosses at Kennedy Space Center quizzed him
after a few weeks, Dobbs nailed it. It struck Colloredo that learning
the language of NASA might not be unlike absorbing multiple NFL
playbooks.

“A
major event in his world today is a football game, a major event with a
lot of preparation, a lot of technical jargon, a lot of rehearsal,”
Colloredo said. “When you’re eventually going to launch a rocket, you’re
going through all these preparations to make sure your launch team is
ready. That’s what we do: We practice, and then we get it right for the
actual big test day or launch day. There’s a lot of similarities. It’s
probably why he’s become so good at both areas. Now he’s showing the
world what he’s good at.”

[Guest]

NASA
officials have encouraged Dobbs to attempt astronaut training once his
football career ends, Colloredo said, which could make Dobbs an overly
imaginative first-grader’s worksheet sprung to life: When I grow up, I
want to be an astronaut and a quarterback.

Joshua
Dobbs didn't start his first game with the Vikings and had barely
practiced with his teammates before he entered the game in the first
quarter after rookie Jaren Hall left with a possible concussion. (Danny
Karnik/AP)

A traveling QB

Dobbs
is an overnight sensation years in the making. He entered the league in
2017, picked by the Steelers in the fourth round. He found himself
buried on the depth chart with no chance of usurping superstar Ben
Roethlisberger.

Dobbs
quickly became one of Roethlisberger’s confidants, sitting next to him
at every meeting. When the Steelers switched from paper playbooks to
tablets, Roethlisberger asked Dobbs to show him how they worked. When
Roethlisberger came off the field between drives on gamedays, the first
person he talked to — before any coach — was Dobbs. “Did you see
anything on this?” Roethlisberger would ask.

“I
trusted he wasn’t going to just say what I wanted to hear,”
Roethlisberger said this week in a phone conversation. “He was going to
tell me what I saw. It’s invaluable to have a guy like that in your
corner and behind you. He wanted to play, but he wasn’t trying to take
my job.”

Steelers
quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, center, walks between backups Joshua
Dobbs (5) and Dwayne Haskins (3) during a minicamp practice in 2021.
(Gene J. Puskar/AP)

Dobbs
appeared in five games in his first five seasons, missing the 2021
season after he suffered turf toe in the preseason. Still, Dobbs
believed he could be a starter. He focused on improving his accuracy and
refining footwork in the pocket. He received few practice reps during
the season, but he took mental reps like he was a starter.

After
the 2021 season, Dobbs recognized he needed to leave Pittsburgh, to
play under a new staff that might view him as a potential starter. He
chose to sign with Cleveland, with Deshaun Watson’s looming suspension a
possible pathway to the field.
Dobbs
became Jacoby Brissett’s backup, though, and when Watson’s 11-game
suspension ended, the Browns waived Dobbs. He worked out for the Denver
Broncos. The Detroit Lions showed interest. He chose Detroit for two
reasons: he wanted to play for up-and-coming coordinator Ben Johnson,
and the Lions didn’t have a backup quarterback signed for 2023. He
joined the Lions’ practice squad on Dec. 5.
Thirteen
days later, Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill suffered an
injury that knocked him out for the season. McCartney, Dobbs’s agent,
called interim Titans general manager Ryan Cowden, hopeful Tennessee
wanted another quarterback option. While they spoke, Cowden pulled up
Dobbs’s preseason film. By the end of the conversation, Cowden told
McCartney, “I’m liking Dobbs.” McCartney texted the quarterback. When
Dobbs told him he was in a meeting, McCartney told him he needed to
leave — he was heading to Tennessee.

Dobbs
drove to the Detroit airport and left his car in long-term parking,
where it remained for several weeks. “The good thing is he had some
clothes in his car,” McCartney said. “Because he had just gotten to
Detroit.”
Nine
days after he arrived in Nashville, Dobbs started an NFL game for the
first time. The Titans lost both of Dobbs’s starts, including a
heartbreaker against Jacksonville that would’ve sent them to the
playoffs. His steady performance under unusual circumstances, though,
gave the league a new perspective. Dobbs signed again with Cleveland.
Two weeks before the season opener, the Browns traded him to the
Cardinals. With Kyler Murray out and unproven choices behind him, the
Cardinals made Dobbs their Week 1 starter.
Though
the Cardinals began the season 1-7, Dobbs established himself as a
viable NFL starter. He kept the Cardinals in games despite a porous
defense. Only Lamar Jackson totaled more rushing yards than he did among
quarterbacks.
After
the Cardinals lost to the Ravens two days before the trade deadline,
Coach Jonathan Gannon announced Dobbs would remain their starter.
Earlier that day, Cousins tore his Achilles’. On Monday, Gannon called
Dobbs into his office and informed him he had changed his mind: Rookie
Clayton Tune would replace him.
Dobbs called McCartney and told him, “Hey, I just got benched.”
“Well, then you’re getting traded,” McCartney said.
“No, he told me I’m not,” Dobbs replied.
“You’re getting traded,” McCartney said. “Pack two weeks’ worth. Who knows? You could be going to Minnesota.”
Dobbs
was stunned. He loved the organization, his place in Scottsdale and the
chance to play. His furniture had just arrived. “I could tell he was
stung,” McCartney said. “It gets old after a while.”
McCartney’s hunch proved prophetic. The Cardinals traded Dobbs to Minnesota for a fifth-round pick. Dobbs headed for the airport, two weeks of clothes in tow.

Joshua
Dobbs stands on the field after his first Vikings start, a victory over
the New Orleans Saints. (Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)

‘Take this all in’

Dobbs
arrived at the hotel where the Vikings house new players, a short walk
from the team’s practice facility. “That part was good,” McCartney said.
“Because he didn’t have a car.” He didn’t know what time he needed to
be at work, so he played it safe: 5 a.m. alarm, arrive around 6. But he
was still on Arizona time, so he tossed and turned when he tried going
to bed early.
“He goes to work the next day like a zombie,” McCartney said. “I’m sure he was overwhelmed.”
Dobbs
missed the first offensive meeting because he needed to take a
physical. The Vikings’ palatial facility includes an offensive meeting
room, a quarterback room and another room where quarterbacks convene
without coaches. He at least knew O’Hara, who had coached him as a
low-level assistant during Dobbs’s 2019 stint with the Jaguars. Dobbs
texted O’Hara all week, “What room are we in?”
At
practice, Vikings coaches prepared Hall for his first NFL start,
against the Atlanta Falcons. Dobbs took only mental reps. He didn’t
throw a pass to any of Minnesota’s starting wide receivers. By Friday,
he had memorized the game plan cold.

[Guest]

On
the second series, Hall suffered a possible concussion. In an instant,
Dobbs went from emergency option to carrying Minnesota’s playoff hopes.
His offensive linemen encircled him on the sideline so he could recite
his cadence. He took snaps from center Garrett Bradbury for the first
time.
On
his third snap, Dobbs was tackled in the end zone for a safety. His
next series ended when Falcons defensive end Arnold Ebiketie sacked him
from behind and knocked away the ball, which the Falcons recovered and
returned to the 1-yard line. When Dobbs began his third series, he
trailed, 11-3, staring at a huddle of teammates he had barely met. He
never flinched.
Dobbs
relied on his athleticism and avoided mistakes. He rushed for 77 yards,
didn’t throw an interception and kept the Vikings in it until the final
drive, when Atlanta led, 28-24. Relying on the “deep cuts,” Dobbs
marched 75 yards and finished with his second touchdown pass of the day.
After seeking an opportunity for so long, his moment had come.
“He’s
a good football player, and you’re seeing it,” Roethlisberger said. “I
felt bad, because he kept going to bad football teams and never getting a
chance. It’s fun that people are getting to see what we always saw.”
“I hope with his success,” Roethlisberger added, chuckling, “he still returns my text messages.”
So
many people Dobbs has met over the years are reveling in his success.
In 2016, at the end of Dobbs’s junior season, wildfires ravaged
Gatlinburg, Tenn. One coach turned on the local news that night and saw a
report about the star quarterback who had driven an hour to visit a
shelter for victims. NFL locker rooms are filled with former teammates
who adore Dobbs. Two NASA centers are packed with brilliant people who
marvel at him.
“I
can’t imagine there’s anybody that has a bad word to say about Josh,”
Roethlisberger said. “Everyone always talks about the NASA, the smart
guy, and obviously he was that. But more important, he was a great guy.
He seemed to always care about everybody. He genuinely wanted to know
how your day was. It’s like he never had a bad day.”
“We’re
all big fans of Josh’s,” Parker, the Glenn communications director,
said. “Our center director would like to hire him tomorrow if he could.”
“He
was humble. He was down-to-earth,” Colloredo said. “He had every reason
in the world to have a big ego, but he couldn’t have been nicer.
There’s a lot of Josh Dobbs fans here, for a lot of reasons. … It is a
big deal to us to see him doing what he’s doing and making nerds cool.
We’re loving this.”
Last
Sunday afternoon, before he played the best game of his life, Dobbs
stood on the sideline as the Minnesota crowd performed its ritual. He
looked around and saw a stadium of purple-clad fans clapping hands over
their heads and screaming, “Skol!” in unison.
“Take this all in,” O’Hara told him. “You got all these people behind you today. Don’t do anything but just be yourself.”

[Guest]

Dobbs, making nerds cool! I love it.

[Guest]

@jargomcfargo said:
Dobbs, making nerds cool! I love it.

Nerds that run a 4.5 forty, are 6'4" and athletic as hell. NFL athlete. Yep, he's got the nerd demo covered.  :p

[Guest]

Man, sure does give a glimmer of hope to the idea that Josh Dobbs could be a long-term NFL starting QB who just never really got a legit chance.

Not counting on it, not expecting it, but the hope is there. 

[Guest]

@MaroonBells said:
Man, sure does give a glimmer of hope to the idea that Josh Dobbs could be a long-term NFL starting QB who just never really got a legit chance.

Not counting on it, not expecting it, but the hope is there. 

Could you imagine our fortune if Dobbs became a starter for us for 10 years?  I don't know where this baby exits but its been a fun ride so far. 

[Guest]

I get the feeling we have the potential for re-do of Mr Mankato on our hands.  Have the votes been certified?