Friday mailbag: What's next for Josh Dobbs?

After a crazy win with a backup QB, Vikings fans have a wide range of questions regarding Josh Dobbs

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday! Is everyone else thinking what I’m thinking? It’s absolutely insane to think about how these mailbags change each week. That’s why we do them, so let’s get right to the questions….

Bradley P… I think KOC is quite possibly a clone of Kyle Shanahan. Someone who makes quarterbacks better than others can. If that’s correct which route do you go with forward?

That is pretty likely to be true. It doesn’t hurt to have great receivers and great offensive tackles, too. While everyone should be impressed by what happened and the image O’Connell against the Falcons showing Dobbs quarterback things on the sideline during timeouts is going to stick with us, I don’t think it changes things much from what we already thought about the future at quarterback. Maybe there is a scenario where KOC’s impact is so extreme that Dobbs becomes the guy next year and he’s the Vikings’ version of Geno Smith but otherwise drafting a QB and giving him a QB-friendly coach and great weapons still makes the most sense.

Coach Z In BC… I’ve heard you mention saving 30 million with Cousins if we do not bring him back but we have an 18 million dead cap with him next year.

It’s $28 million in dead cap space and it does not disappear into thin air if Cousins comes back, it just gets pushed down the road more. By the way, Jason La Confora floated $45 million per year as a number for Cousins if they bring him back. So let’s say a $17 million gap between his dead cap hit and salary and then the part of the dead cap hit that’s getting spread out. Is it exactly $30 million? Maybe not but it’s not that far away either. I’m sure I said that as a guesstimate on the podcast.

Jake… After winning 4 in a row and watching the offense function pretty efficiently without 18, does this make the decision to sign JJ to a massive deal more interesting? Seems like there may be more of a case now than previously to trade him after seeing the team win the past 4 weeks. I know your stance previously. Curious if anything has changed in your mind. Thoughts? I still think we should lock him in long term. WR is such a valuable position and he is at the top in the entire sport but I can certainly see an argument to be made.

I do not see any scenario where it makes sense to trade Justin Jefferson. Never have. Never will. It’s impressive that they went 4-0 without him but it would be bananas to think that is proof that he isn’t that valuable. They are trying to win the Super Bowl someday, not survive the Bears, Packers and Falcons. The goal for the Vikings in the future should be to weigh the odds of the next quarterback succeeding as heavily in their favor as possible. That doesn’t happen by giving away Jefferson for draft picks. You see all over the league how receivers like Tyreek Hill and AJ Brown have done that for their young quarterbacks and what their QBs looked like before they were there.

Geoff… Here's my #1 takeaway from last week and indeed the last season and a half: KOC is the goods. More than Denny Green or Mike Zimmer ever did (the two best Vikings coaches since Bud Grant retired, and their achievements as coaches were real), Kevin O'Connell has the potential to eventually rival (but never eclipse--that's just kind of impossible) Bud as all time great Vikings coach. Landing KOC to helm the team was even bigger than landing Justin Jefferson in the draft. Yea or nay?

That’s really unfair to Denny and Zimmer. Those guys took teams to the brink of the Super Bowl with quarterbacks who didn’t start the year. I’m as impressed as anyone with what O’Connell has been able to do but Denny didn’t have a losing season from 1992 to 2000 and Zimmer took a broken franchise in 2013 to division champions in 2015 and the NFC title game with Case Keenum and a No. 1 defense in 2017. Zimmer’s win percentage for his career is above Marv Levy and .007 behind Bill Parcells. The Vikings’ franchise has been blessed with a lot of great coaches, including the under appreciated Jerry Burns.

To your point, landing O’Connell after moving on from Zimmer was one of those moves that shapes the entire trajectory of a franchise. Hire the wrong guy and you could have been in complete disarray like the Raiders. I don’t know how to answer the question about Justin Jefferson though. Roster strength is always going to be the biggest determining factor in winning in the NFL, so I’m always going to choose superstar players but that doesn’t mean to downplay the massive impact KOC has had on the organization.

Jake… I loved the whole Dobbs story from Sunday but I cannot help but feel bad for Jaren Hall and believe he showed enough to get another shot at extensive playing time. No one believes Dobbs is the future, or expect him to play as well as he did last week, but is it Dobbs' job until he loses it?

I hate seeing guys get hurt so I’m with you on feeling terrible for what happened to Hall when he was operating a really good drive. The thing about Hall is that they never wanted him to be forced into action this soon. If they did, he wouldn’t have been QB3 and they wouldn’t have gone out and gotten a starter like Dobbs. I think they wanted him to spend the year learning and then be prepared to be the backup in the future. I’m also not sure that nobody believes in Dobbs. Not that he’s likely to be the franchise QB but he has some talents that you usually don’t see from a career backup. We have seen guys develop and become starters throughout NFL history, so I’m at least intrigued enough to see it play out and maybe he ends up being the bridge QB while developing a rookie next year.

Jason… How do Akayleb Evans and Trae Waynes compare development wise? I believe you started covering the team in Wayne’s second year.

I definitely see where you are coming from with the comparison. It wasn’t until Year 3 when we really saw Waynes get it. Both are on the taller side and neither is above average when it comes to playing the ball. The biggest difference for me would be raw speed and strength. Nobody could outrun Waynes. If he got beat off the line of scrimmage, he was able to close the gap, meaning he could play press coverage all the time and you’d never be worried about him getting roasted. Waynes was also a way above average tackler. Evans is probably better at playing off coverage and trying to react to receivers at the top of their routes. And he’s second in the league in missed tackles, which has to improve. Overall there’s a lot to like about Evans though. You could see him continuing to develop into next year and being a very solid starter.

Pickle Enjoyer… 28 million dead cap for Cousins, prorated if resigned. Regardless, I think that Dobbs has shown enough to be a bridge and drafting someone like McCarthy should be the play. Cousins is cost-prohibitive at this point and KOC needs to get his "guy".

Preaching to the choir, Pickle Enjoyer. The only thing is, I’m not going to shift opinions on this depending on how Dobbs plays. Let’s keep in mind that he has 16 turnover-worthy plays this year, which is tied for the third most in the NFL and we can’t pin that entirely on Arizona being a bad team. So if he doesn’t continue to win and this thing goes sideways, I won’t suddenly think that KOC isn’t actually that great with quarterbacks and they need to bring Cousins back.

The Cousins decision entirely rests on projecting his future performance with his age, this injury, cost and the dead cap hit that has to be paid one way or another. It’s hard to make that all work. There’s a lot of reasons to think about the draft but it’s possible that the team’s opinions could be shifted by what happens next with Dobbs one way or the other.

Jon… Has this been KAM and KOC’s best week? Do you think that this has done anything to change their futures and how might this change their decision making for next season and beyond?

That’s a good observation. Obviously it was really something for KOC to show the world how he could handle a chaotic situation with a steady hand and craft a win from the sideline. There’s an even deeper point here about the way the team has come together throughout the season when it looked pretty ugly at the beginning. But you are right to point out that Adofo-Mensah’s part in this too. He made the trade for Dobbs without giving up almost anything. Now when we look at the roster, there are a lot of players on the field that he acquired that are making positive impacts and signing Metellus before the season looks like a big home run. Not to mention that avoiding a Cousins extension appears pretty wise. If he was under contract for the next two years you would be very, very nervous about what that was going to look like.

We always need to draw from the big picture when we talk about their futures. On the whole the franchise has to be toward the top of the entire NFL in stability and overall atmosphere for players and they are 18-8 in the regular season and appear en route to putting together a sustainable roster because of the smart salary cap decisions that were made with veterans last year. I’m not sure what more you could ask for. Does that mean I’m crowning them? No. But there’s a lot that is trending the right way.

Stephanie… I remember when Kwesi and KOC were hired and people I highly respect were so skeptical of what culture could do for a team. Articles were written and podcasts recorded, all admitting it was a nice idea and pretty words but wouldn't probably turn into anything. After last year and now this year, I think we're seeing the difference culture can make in real time. Do you think teams will re-evaluate culture and its importance moving forward, or will it continue to be business as usual for most teams? We talk about players running through walls for coaches, but I think this team would go skinning dipping in a volcano for KOC.

Yeah, the skepticism comes from hearing very similar words over and over both from great coaches and from coaches who couldn’t manage a hot dog stand much less run a team. I don’t think anyone believed that culture was fake, particularly since it was miserable by the time Zimmer was done, it’s just so much easier said than done to shift an entire franchise. What we are seeing is the head coach set the tone for everyone in the building. It’s special. Others should study his methods but how can you ever recreate how someone will act when they are at the center of a s— storm?

The biggest thing coaches should understand is that if you have the right veteran players — guys like Jordan Hicks, Harrison Phillips, Garrett Bradbury, Brian O’Neill, Harrison Smith, Danielle Hunter etc. — then you can put a ton of trust in those players to handle their business. And if you are the same whether you win or lose, there’s huge value in that because everyone follows your lead.

Wade… What’s going on with the running game, Matthew? Scheme, personnel, tendencies, some combination thereof? I’d be interested in any light you might be able to shed on the subject.

Repeat after me, KOC: Out. Side. Zone. Mattison is fifth worst in the NFL in Rushing Yards Over Expected but if you go back to 2019 and 2020 under Kevin Stefanski and Gary Kubiak he was among the more positive RYOE running backs in the league. There’s no reason to think he lost a step, so something isn’t matching up with how the blocking is being done and how he’s reading/reacting. The big run to start the game vs. SF was outside zone, which he may just be better at understanding since that’s where he made his bones in the NFL.

That’s the best I can come up with. I will point out that the run blocking the last two weeks really struggled and there were way too many times where it looked like guys weren’t working together on the double team blocks. They have to get everyone on the same page or it’s going nowhere. I would definitely like to see a lot more of Ty Chandler because he is a natural playmaker with blazing speed.

Steve… What Dobbs did Sunday was incredible. Is it sustainable long-term, or are we looking at Fitzmagic 2.0?

It’s very likely a Fitzmagic type situation but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Fitzy had some runs of very good play, including 2014 with the Texans and 2015 when he went 10-6 with the Jets. If Dobbs gives you entertaining yet erratic play that gives your team a shot at the postseason, that’s the best you could ask for. I’ll need to see a lot more before we can starting talking about sustainable down the stretch of this season and anything in the future.

Joel… What would a non salary capped NFL look like?

It’s hard to think about what that would be like. Wal-Mart owns a football team. Can you imagine what they could pay a quarterback? Teams with a little less cash flow would constantly be losing all of their successful draft picks to the big fish once they hit free agency. But the crazy thing about football is that spending like crazy doesn’t always mean you win. We see prudent teams that know when to move on from players having success and teams that try to make big splashes don’t always thrive. The Patriots were really good at that during the Brady years. Two historic examples come to mind of paying out and failing: The Washington team that tried to bring in all those veterans like Deion Sanders and Bruce Smith and the “Dream Team” Eagles that flopped.

We also have to consider that the owners might still also try to keep costs down. You saw what happened with Lamar this offseason. Maybe it wouldn’t be as different as we might think.

Chris… My expectation is that Dobbs will struggle for at least a few weeks as he actually learns the offence, begins to overthink situations and opponents game plan for him - do you also think expectations of him are far too high after last Sunday & what do you think he needs to do, realistically, to keep Mullens on the bench after the bye?

Oh yeah, the expectations are definitely too high. We are always going to over react to whatever we just saw in football. It wouldn’t be the NFL if it wasn’t that way. We went from the most down that building has been in a long time after Kirk’s injury to the whole TCO Performance Center riding high after Dobbs’ win. It’s all about winning by any means with Dobbs. If it’s a little bit wild but he’s making enough plays to keep them in games and finding a way to win, they will stick with it no matter what the stat line says. The ceiling is going to be higher with him than Mullens just based on athletic ability alone. If it goes sideways and he’s turning the ball over and they’re losing games then they may have to make a switch. We’ll see if that becomes a difficult decision at some point or not…