The last 11 months of an itinerant quarterback:
Dec. 20, 2022. Dobbs, on the Detroit practice squad, got a call from agent Mike McCartney. Tennessee had an injury to quarterback Ryan Tannehill and interim GM Ryan Cowden needed a QB to pair with rookie Malik Willis. Cowden watched enough tape to know he wanted Dobbs, who jumped at the chance. Tennessee signed him off the Detroit practice squad.
Dec. 29, 2022. After eight days in the Titans’ building, Dobbs started the last two regular-season games against Dallas and Jacksonville, losing both.
March 23, 2023. In free agency, Dobbs signed with Cleveland, picking the Browns over Tennessee.
Aug. 24, 2023. The Browns traded Dobbs to Arizona, where the new regime of Jonathan Gannon did not feel great about Colt McCoy and David Blough holding the fort till Kyler Murray returned from a torn ACL.
Sept. 10, 2023. Seventeen days after arriving with the Cardinals, Dobbs started at Washington. In week three, he won the first game of his starting career. He retained the starting job until the morning of …
Oct. 30, 2023. Gannon said at his post-game press conference Sunday Dobbs would remain the starter. But he had a change of heart. He called in Dobbs and said he was making a change, but Dobbs would remain with the team through the trade deadline. Good, thought Dobbs; my furniture just got here from Cleveland, and I’ve just moved into a new home.
Oct. 31, 2023. “Better have one bag packed, just in case,” McCartney told Dobbs early in the day. Good thing. The Cards traded Dobbs to QB-desperate Minnesota after the injury to Kirk Cousins. Dobbs made a 5 p.m. nonstop flight to Minneapolis, leaving his furniture, again, behind.
Nov. 1, 2023. Wednesday. First day of the work week. Dobbs reported, took a physical, started getting a crash course with the offense, and got ready to back up rookie Jaren Hall, set to make his first start in Atlanta over the weekend. This would be a week for studying, for learning a new offense, for helping Hall get through his first big NFL test.
Nov. 5, 2023. Strange day all around. Dobbs was back in his hometown of Atlanta, just down the street from his days as an Alpharetta High quarterback. “I looked over and saw the guys on the chain gang,” he said later. “They used to officiate my high school games.” Eleven plays into the game, Hall got concussed. “They told me don’t get hurt, because I’m the only quarterback,” Dobbs said. His first series ended in a safety, the second in a lost strip-sack. He hadn’t taken one snap with the first unit, and was so ill-equipped to play anything more than emergency duty that he practiced the cadence and snap with center Garrett Bradbury between series. In the final two minutes, he led the Vikings 75 yards to the winning touchdown, throwing the decisive TD pass to Brandon Powell with 22 seconds left. Vikes 31, Falcons 28. In the locker room after the game, head coach Kevin O’Connell gave Dobbs a game ball. His new teammates, some of whom he hadn’t met yet, lifted him on their shoulders in celebration.
Five teams, 45 weeks.
“I told [McCartney], this should be a book, or a movie,” Dobbs said an hour after the most unlikely win of this NFL season. “But who’d believe it?”
Read more in Peter King’s full Football Morning in America column.