These quarterbacks just shocked the NFL with their Week 9 performance
Josh Dobbs and CJ Stroud both thrilled NFL fans this week, with Dobbs making his Vikings debut and Stroud setting a brand new NFL rookie record.
Sports seriously
Who needs practice – or needs to know who you’re playing with – when you’re Joshua Dobbs?
Just five days after being traded from the Arizona Cardinals to the Minnesota Vikings, the quarterback was dropped from his new team’s road game against the Atlanta Falcons after rookie starter Jaren Hall was injured on the team’s second possession of the day.
Even though Dobbs didn’t play a single snap with the offense in practice before Sunday, he delivered an incredible performance, completing 20 of 30 passes for 158 yards and two touchdown passes, including the game-winning scoring throw to Brandon Powell, who had 22 left Seconds left to lead Minnesota to a 31-28 win. The result moved the Vikings to 5-4 on the season and their fourth straight win.
Dobbs was also the leading rusher on the day with seven carries for 66 yards and a touchdown run, with several runs extending drives and keeping hopes of a win alive.
“He’s smart as hell.”
Powell and fellow Vikings receiver Jordan Addison both confirmed to reporters after the game that Dobbs did not throw any passes during practice.
“He’s smart as hell. He’s smart to come in here, learn the offense so quickly and go out and play it. He’s a smart guy,” Powell said. “He was paying attention. He came into the game, never practiced, and we won the game.”
“It’s hard to go out and do something when you don’t get the reps you need, but he did it.”
Addison added that everyone in the offensive group let Dobbs know what he would do on each play and confirmed what routes the receivers would take. Regardless, Dobbs was in the middle of a big celebration with his teammates in the locker room after the win.
Powell is right; Dobbs is “smart as hell.” He studied aerospace engineering at the University of Tennessee and completed an external internship at NASA after graduating with a 4.0 GPA. So “rocket scientist” is not an exaggeration.
Dobbs plans to learn the names of his teammates
Dobbs, who was the Cardinals’ eight-game starter after being traded from the Cleveland Browns just before the start of the regular season, described the week’s whirlwind as like someone taking Spanish classes for an entire year and then being told he has to take a test in French. He said coaches asked him how comfortable he was with the playbook if he had to play, to which he replied: “Everything on that call sheet we installed this week, I understood. I can execute it. I got it.” He even admitted that he didn’t know the full names of most of his teammates until Sunday.
“If we had to put together a list of names, I would be a bad teammate today,” Dobbs said.
But the fourth-round pick in the 2017 NFL Draft will have to learn next as Minnesota prepares to face the New Orleans Saints in Week 10.
“Names, this is for this week. That’s a task for this week,” Dobbs said.