Joshua Dobbs said he texted Kevin O’Connell after the Chicago Bears game. Dobbs had had his first bad performance in Minnesota, throwing four interceptions in a 12-10 loss to Chicago. Four games after he learned Minnesota’s offense through his headset in Atlanta, Dobbs had fallen back to Earth. O’Connell didn’t commit to starting him in Vegas after the bye; Dobbs asked for another opportunity in his post-game press conference.
Dobbs texted O’Connell, knowing he wasn’t guaranteed to be the starter when play resumed after the bye week. “I just knew we had a free week, so I just went through the tape from the game with [O’Connell], and Chris [O’Hara] as well, the QB coach,” Dobbs said. “So it was good, there’s obviously a little more free time.”
While the Vikings threw Dobbs into action immediately in Atlanta, time has otherwise been on his side. He’s new to Minnesota, and without any outside obligations, he was able to spend long hours at the Vikings facility in Eagan learning the offense. Still, he’s had to do everything in real-time, given that he played the preseason with the Cleveland Browns and made four starts with the Arizona Cardinals.
The Vikings traded for Dobbs, intending to start rookie Jaren Hall against the Falcons and give Dobbs an opportunity afterward. But Hall suffered a concussion on Minnesota’s second drive, forcing Dobbs into action. With Kirk Cousins out for the season, the Vikings had three options at quarterback following the bye. They could go back to Hall, who looked poised on the road in Atlanta. Nick Mullens was also an option. Mullens was Minnesota’s incumbent backup to start the year and has a good grasp of the offense. But O’Connell and his staff stuck with Dobbs after evaluating all three quarterbacks during the bye week.
“I just went and went back and watched everything,” said O’Connell. “[I] created a process where you’re figuring out how you want to tag certain plays to where you can really look at it from a standpoint of comparing Josh’s snaps here, his previous snaps when he was with Arizona, and then looking at Nick’s snaps from the preseason, last year when he played versus Green Bay, his preseason snaps since we’ve basically had him, and really just evaluating.”
Ultimately, they landed on Dobbs. Justin Jefferson is returning, which should help him, and Dobbs put in extra work during the week to learn the offense better. O’Connell and his staff also were able to better adjust the offense to him. “With Josh, it was really, what more can I do to continue to help him?” said O’Connell. “[It’s] important that Josh understands that I have that belief in him. We’re not just looking at this like, ‘Hey, you won us a couple games when we were shorthanded, and now we’re moving on.’”
Minnesota’s players probably didn’t love having a late bye. Instead of getting a week of reprieve in the middle of the season, they played 12 games, 11 of which they won or lost by one score. However, it was helpful for the coaches, who had plenty of tape to pore over. Dobbs became a focus because of his unique situation.
“I liked having the late bye,” said offensive coordinator Wes Phillips. “I don’t know if all the players would agree necessarily. I’m sure some of them will complain no matter when the bye is, but I thought it was good for us as far as just kinda an inventory over this many games. With this much inventory, you can really kinda see where you’re at and where we’ve gone as an offense. Every year, it kinda evolves a little differently.”
The Vikings have cycled through more players than usual to try and keep their season alive after an 0-3 start. They traded for Dalton Risner and Cam Akers, who made an immediate impact. Anthony Barr is back. But their gamble on Dobbs, whom Kwesi Adofo-Mensah knew from his time in Cleveland, paid off when they needed someone at football’s most important position. Dobbs was effective in his first two starts, wasn’t at fault in Denver, and did enough to convince the coaching staff that the Chicago game was an outlier.
“[The bye week] gave us time to look at what he’s done here more closely and take a breath from game-planning for the next team,” said Phillips, “and starting to look at, what did he have success with? What are some things that we can help him with and work on throughout yesterday’s practice and going forward this week?… Just him getting accustomed to our offense and our system. He’s got more time, but we can kinda put a couple of those things together where we’re hopefully going to get into some things that are good for him and vice versa.”
O’Connell says he discussed his process with Dobbs after the Chicago game, trying to clarify what he was evaluating.
“It started [shortly after] postgame,” said O’Connell. “’Here’s what I’m gonna do, Josh. I’m going to study what this inventory looks like. I appreciate spending some time with you to get some clarity on exactly where you’re at within our offense right now. Things that maybe we can do to help you incorporate to make you feel as comfortable as you possibly can within our offense because there is ten other guys out there that also have to feel comfortable with what we’re doing.’”
“It’s been good, open communication,” said Dobbs. “He’s also texted me to come in and sit down and talk ball as well. Things that he’s seeing how I can improve, so communication has been going both ways. It’s been an open line of communication, which has been good.
“I’ve seen it being here for four weeks,” he continued. “I’ve seen it watching old tape, that whoever’s in there, when they’re playing clean, efficient football, this offense is really difficult to stop.
“So the more I can get in Kevin’s head as he’s calling plays, the more I can continue getting the coaching staff’s head as they’re formulating plays to attack defenses will only allow me to play more efficiently, and ultimately it will allow us to play our best football offensively.”
The Vikings are using the bye week as a reset, as most teams do. But they especially needed it. Their offense looked hapless against a 4-8 Bears team and dropped to .500, making it more challenging to sneak into the playoffs. They chose the right guy in Dobbs; it’s just unfortunate that they didn’t get the extra time to work with him a week earlier.
