Maybe you’ve heard: Joshua Dobbs earned a 4.0 GPA and a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Tennessee. The quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings has completed two externships with NASA, worked at the SpaceX rocket launch facility, and gave rise to the moniker “Astronauts.”
To say that Dobbs’ NFL success has been solely fueled by his intelligence since he joined the Vikings last week would be to sell him short. Amidst the curiosity of the rest of his story, he has largely gone unrecognized for his hard ethic and smarts, which have allowed him to traverse a very unique situation.
Dobbs and Udinski ran through every play on the more than 100-call sheet that coach Kevin O’Connell intended to have available against the Falcons over the span of almost six hours.
“We were trying to uncover every single stone,” Dobbs stated. “Basically doing a research project… to try to get up to speed on the offense, generate maybe some extra reps I would have missed from camp and OTAs, and get on the same page with everyone to get the offense rolling in the right direction.”
It turned out that the Vikings needed Dobbs in Atlanta before the first quarter was out. After the squad’s third possession, Hall was sidelined due to a concussion; however, Dobbs came in and led the team to an unlikely victory, scoring two touchdowns and accumulating 224 all-purpose yards before even knowing the names of most of his teammates.
Since Dobbs joined that game in Atlanta, the Vikings are 2-2. Under conditions that typically end a season, he has kept them in the NFC playoff race despite a string of blunders that led to back-to-back losses prior to the Week 13 bye. For Sunday’s (4:05 p.m. ET, Fox) game against the Las Vegas Raiders, O’Connell declined to replace him, stating that the Vikings must “dive deeper into what helps him be the best version of himself”—a vote of confidence that offers a chance to follow Dobbs’ path through almost a quarter of the 32 teams in the NFL.
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