I don’t necessarily have anything against those fans. We’ve seen countless examples of terrible teams winning a meaningless game or two and costing them a chance at a generational player. I won’t fault any of the Jacksonville Jaguars or Cincinnati Bengals faithful who hoped their team would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and find a way to secure their quarterback of the future.
That said, it’s just not in my DNA. So when things looked grim after the 1-4 start, I appreciated when Kevin O’Connell chose to rally the troops rather than sink the season. This team’s run to fight their way back into Wild Card contention was pretty remarkable, including the pair of wins with Josh Dobbs at the helm. But after a rough outing in Denver and a catastrophe against the Chicago Bears, it wasn’t long until fans online wondered if Dobbs’ magic had run out. O’Connell seemed to have doubts, leaving the door open for a quarterback change after the bye week.
If you’d straw-polled the fanbase, rookie Jaren Hall likely would have been their quarterback of choice to start in Vegas. We got the briefest glimpse of Hall in Atlanta before Dobbs took over, and it was a promising (if tiny) sample size. For many fans, this team doesn’t appear to be a Super Bowl contender, so it may be more valuable to get an evaluation on their rookie quarterback before next season. In that sense, it’s a situation not all that different from when some fans were calling for the team to tank at 1-4.
But as he did last time, O’Connell is betting on himself and this team. And that tells us a lot about the kind of coach he wants to be so early in his tenure. The Vikings are starting Dobbs this week against the Las Vegas Raiders. For at least one more week, Dobbs held off the 25-year-old rookie out of BYU and fellow journeyman Nick Mullens. I’ll grant you that neither Hall nor Mullens are exactly high-pedigree talents the team made significant investments in. Still, I don’t think this was an easy decision for O’Connell by any stretch.
For starters, Dobbs is coming off one of the worst games of his career. And that wasn’t against the ‘85 Bears, either. It was a fairly average defense that’d been particularly vulnerable through the air this season. But rather than bouncing back with a strong performance in the passing game, Chicago’s secondary instituted a No-Fly Zone against Dobbs. Dobbs’ timing was poor, his footwork was sloppy, and his passes were inaccurate. All that culminated in a brutal performance through the air. Balls were late, Chicago contested every catch, and the team couldn’t make a play. The few times when plays were there to be made, Dobbs didn’t see it, or he flat-out missed. Need I make us relive that egregious overthrow on Addison’s would-be touchd
