The Joshua Dobbs experiment may be over—again—for now. Following a dismal four-interception game in a loss to the Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell would not commit to keeping Dobbs in the starting lineup. He even insinuated that he considered benching him during the game.
“We’re going to take a look and really evaluate the inventory of plays now we have of Josh”, he said after the game, via Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. “We got healthy. We got Jaren [Hall] back, you know, available to us and then Nick Mullens is available as well”.
When asked about possibly putting Mullens into the game, he admitted that they “had started to get to the point where I was just trying to think almost what would give us a spark”, which can hardly count as a surprise. “As much as the turnovers absolutely cripple you offensively, I still thought Josh battled, no flinch, and just kept playing and competing to try help us win”, he added.
The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2017 fourth-round pick has been a fun story to follow ever since he was suddenly thrust into the starting lineup for the Tennessee Titans at the end of last season. Since then, he has started all but one game—for two other teams.
Dobbs originally re-signed with the Cleveland Browns in March before being traded to the Arizona Cardinals on Aug. 24. He started every game for them while QB Kyler Murray was injured before being traded on Oct. 31 to the Vikings, who’d just lost Kirk Cousins.
He did not start right away, however, sitting on the bench behind Mullens, yet just five days into his tenure with the team, he was forced by injury to play, and it’s been quite a ride since then. He authored a remarkable comeback in that game before narrowly losing to the Denver Broncos last week.
And then there was last night. He completed 22-of-32 pass attempts to his own teammates for 185 yards, but unfortunately, he also completed another four of those 32 pass attempts to Bears—that is, he threw four interceptions. And it should have been five.
In spite of all that, following two consecutive drives that ended in interceptions, Dobbs authored a fourth-quarter comeback on an eight-play, 77-yard drive culminating in a 17-yard touchdown pass to TE T.J. Hockenson. That made it 10-9 Vikings, but the Bears were able to win it with a late field goal.
Dobbs is now 2-11 for his career as a starter, 2-9 on the season, including 1-7 with the Cardinals and now 1-2 with the Vikings, though he certainly was responsible for the win in the game in which he replaced Mullens.
No doubt he has been one of the most interesting stories in the NFL this year. Largely anonymous for the better part of five seasons since coming out of college, he’s suddenly a national storyline and deservedly so. It’s been a fun ride, often unorthodox. But I’m not sure anybody who has followed his entire career would be surprised if he returned to the bench.
