Cardinals Traded Josh Dobbs Just One Day After Telling Him He Would Not Be Traded
When Josh Dobbs was traded from the Arizona Cardinals to the Minnesota Vikings just before the trade deadline, no one was more surprised than he was. That's because the Cardinals assured him that wasn't going to happen.
Appearing on the Torchbearers podcast this week, the veteran quarterback explained how he went from the starter to the backup to not even a member of the team — all in the course of 36 hours.
It started on Sunday, Oct. 29 after the Cardinals' 31-24 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. After the game, head coach Jonathan Gannon told Dobbs he would remain Arizona's starting quarterback until Kyler Murray returned to the field.
Josh Dobbs said Jonathan Gannon promised him he'd remain a Cardinal. (Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images)
But he changed his tune the next day.
"I go to the facility on Monday and JG called me into his office and said, 'We're going to start Clayton Tune,'" Dobbs said. "I was upset with it, but I understood the situation the franchise was in."
Even after being benched for the rookie, though, Dobbs said Gannon assured him that the Cardinals were keeping him for the remainder of the season.
"Woke up Tuesday morning with a text from my agent saying, 'You could be traded today because it's the trade deadline,'" Dobbs said.
"And listen to this — when I had my meeting with JG in Arizona, he looked at me in the face and he said, 'You're not getting traded, you're not being released, you're going to be here in Arizona.' I was like, OK, cool. So then I woke up to that text saying all right the trade deadline's in four hours, you could be traded, you could go to Minnesota or go back to Cleveland."
Josh Dobbs Becomes A Hero In Minnesota
Despite what Gannon had said, the Cardinals did trade Dobbs to Minnesota. And Vikings fans are glad they did.
The 28 year old originally joined the roster to fill the void left after QB1 Kirk Cousins' season-ending Achilles injury. However, Dobbs joined the team on Tuesday. That's not enough time to learn the offense, so the team elected to start rookie Jaren Hall.
Unfortunately, Hall suffered a concussion on the team's first offensive drive against the Atlanta Falcons. You're up, Josh!
"It's like if you were taking Spanish all year, and you showed up and someone told you Wednesday... you have an AP French exam on Sunday," Dobbs said after the game.
"And you've gotta go execute. Someone's gonna talk to you in Spanish and translate it to the French. That's kind of like what was going on out there."
Josh Dobbs led the Vikings to a win after joining them less than a week earlier. (Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images)
Luckily, Dobbs — a literal rocket scientist — was smart enough to figure it out on the fly.
He led the Vikings to a 31-28 win in his first game in Minnesota. And now, he has a chance to lead them to the playoffs — somewhere the Cardinals will not be heading.
So on the surface, it might seem like Gannon and the Cards did him dirty. In reality, they did him a favor.
Follow Amber on X at @TheAmberHarding or email her at Amber.Harding@OutKick.com.