Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Did Josh Dobbs change the Vikings' future path at quarterback?

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Matthew Coller and Manny Hill talk about Josh Dobbs' sudden ascension as the Vikings' quarterback and what it means for the immediate and future. Plus, Manny makes a list of his favorite Vikings backup QB surprise performances. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, and as always on Mondays and Thursdays, Manny Hill, who said last week that Josh Dobbs would surprisingly come off the bench and then deliver a tremendous all-time memorable performance, and he would throw a couple of touchdowns, he would run spectacularly, the Vikings would win it and be right in the center of the playoff race. That's exactly what I remember you saying about Josh Dobbs, you the Tennessee expert saying about Josh Dobbs last week, Manny,

no one go back and check the tape because that's exactly what you said. In fact, Matthew, I guaranteed it. I promised it. I told everybody to bet on it bet the farm on it it was exactly it was going to play out exactly that way and i was 1000 correct i have to say because i saw this a couple of times uh over the weekend and into monday but one genre of person that i do not understand in sports sports fans fans, is the person who says, you doubted him. Or, see, he showed you.

Like, well, I mean, I guess so. For us, maybe not thinking Josh Dobbs would come off the bench with no preparation whatsoever and win the game. I got to say, you're right. I did not see that coming. That's quite surprising to me. And the whole rest of the entire universe, which is why it's being talked about everywhere else. And the best thing about sports, Manny, is when we're surprised,

is when we never see it coming that an underdog team like the, who won the World Series, was it the Texas Rangers? When the underdog team like the who won the world series was at the texas rangers when the underdog team like the texas rangers that i was paying very close attention to all season long comes out of nowhere and wins the big thing they do in baseball i'm just kidding i like baseball the rangers win the world series uh but we're a football show so like you're very surprised by oh underdog a comeback win Your team is down 33 points. Oh my gosh.

And you know what, Manny? You're never going to believe this. I doubted the Vikings when they were down 33. And I bet some other people did as well. And then they surprised me and it was incredible. And the same thing goes for what we saw from Josh Dobbs. I was very shocked at the outcome at about halftime. I was thinking about headlines for my article reacting. Is it going to be like the no good, miserable, God awful, pathetic day

for the Minnesota Vikings? That's what I thought it was going to be because it looked all of those things. And yet they surprised us. And it was really fun. And what a day to listen to Kevin O'Connell, which I've got some clips from him, talk about it. The national attention that's come along with it. It is really something very, very unique in sports that, I mean, how many times in the last decade has something like this happened for a quarterback? Very few. Very few. Yeah, and it's fun. It's what makes sports fun to watch it's what

makes conversation fun is when things that you don't expect actually happen you know if everybody is correct all the time if everybody made the accurate predictions if i mean you and i both picked the vikings to lose yesterday i i was pleasantly surprised to see them win the game. I was pleasantly surprised to see Josh Dobb come in and perform the way he did, especially considering how things started out for him in that game, because it looked like those first couple of possessions, it looked like this was going to be a disastrous day. I mean, I was getting like, after that first possession, or it might have been the second possession where the safety happened i i was i was getting a sense of like josh freeman

josh freeman vibes like i was feeling like oh god this is this game is going to be really bad the falcons are going to win probably by like three touchdowns and it's going to be a disaster. Josh Dobbs has been with the team for five days. Like this is going to be bad. And he turned around and performed later, performed great later, led the team to a win a two minute drive at the end to win the game. I mean, you can't,

you can't even really make that stuff up. And it was, it was fun. It was great to watch. If I wanted to cover a team that was predictable I would not have chosen this one to cover because let me tell you there's been a lot of things along the way that I could not have predicted in fact you know what it reminded me a lot of Manny and we're going to get to this later so maybe you could skip responding to this point because you've made a list of Vikings unexpected backup quarterback performances.

But it did remind me of and there are many, but I restricted you to only one per selection, one backup quarterback per selection. So we'll get to that list a little bit later. But when Case Keenum came off the bench mid game, when Sam Bradford got hurt in 2017 and he got rolling with that team against Chicago. They had a comeback win. And even then the first couple of games that Keenum played, we were like, I don't know about this. And it all came together and they created something special. So let me ask you this, and then we'll get to the main question from the headline, which I need to do a better job at getting into quickly with the show uh but how much did it change your expectation because we went through and we tried to pick the wins and losses with jaron hall and josh dobbs and you know i mean it's uh it changes all the

time that's why we do things like that is to see where we're at and then go back and compare it but uh how much would it change your opinion of what this team's final record will be considering the way that Dobbs played on Sunday I think it changed a little bit um from the standpoint that now you know based off of what we saw yesterday I still think despite the fact that Kirk Cousins is out for the year, I think that this team can still make the playoffs. They're in a playoff spot right now. They're in the seventh seed in the NFC. And when you look at the teams that are around them, you know, the Vikings can match up with pretty much any of these teams that are kind of right there in the mix with the, in the playoff mix for them, even with Josh Dobbs at quarterback. You know,

when we talked on Thursday and we kind of laid out, you know, how is this going to look now that Kirk Cousins is out for the year? If Josh Dobbs starts the remainder of the games, I think I had them, I think I had them at eight and nine, which was kind of generous because that had Josh Dobbs is going like 500 as a starter down the stretch for the second half of the season. So that was a pretty generous prediction. So as far as the difference from what I had them at on Thursday to now,

it's not much in terms of how many games they might win. I think nine and eight is still a very strong possibility for them. But I think it's based off of what we saw from Josh Dobbs yesterday. I think it's just going to look a little bit better. I think he's going to perform better than what I initially thought. And hey, if they find a way to maybe steal a couple of games and if they go on like a so they've got their five and four. So they've got what eight games left.

If they go on a five and three type of stretch here, which I think is possible when you look at the schedule. Now they're 10 and seven. And that's what I had them as if we hypothetically speaking, if Kirk Cousins were still healthy for the rest of the season. So they can find a way to steal one of these games if the three losses that you have are you know to Cincinnati uh one of you know one of the Detroit games and then maybe you steal another game maybe you're going to Denver and win that game or something like that hey man I mean it's it it could be really interesting and it would just be it would just be crazy when you consider everything that has kind of transpired over the last two weeks yeah with Dobbs I think if we're trying to look for what happened yesterday and what the cause is, there's a couple of things that I underestimated

that I think could sustain the rest of the way. I knew that Brian Flores' defense would keep them in the game. I knew that Arthur Smith would keep them in the game. So there was that. I don't think anybody thought that they were getting blown out. And also, trying to judge Jaron Hall starting was very difficult. Like, is this guy going to be able to step in and do something or not? Because some fifth rounders have come in and looked pretty good. And some have come in and looked like they have never

played football before. And you really don't know what you're going to get. But then when Dobbs comes off the bench and looks so bad, yeah, of course you think, okay, this is going to go in a very poor way. So I have only met Josh Dobbs one time. So it's harder to have a gauge on his personality, but here's what we learned. I don't know if you've heard this. He's pretty smart, but smart in a lot of the right ways, like understanding information and being able to apply it is really important. Just taking book tests for aerospace engineering is not really usually something that translates to the NFL. That's why there's not a bunch of aerospace engineers playing for the Jaguars or something like this is this is a hard thing to do. So that's special. His resolve was special. The fact that none of that got him down and he came out and just kept, kept pushing

throughout that game. Every time something went wrong, they fumble a snap. He finds a way on the next play to escape and make a play. I think I underestimated also just how much Kevin O'Connell could push down the gas pedal into the headset to help out a quarterback. And even without Justin Jefferson, even without KJ Osborne for pretty much the entire time, still found a way to get people open, to draw up things that Josh Dobbs understood and to teach him on the fly. And with that said, Manny, I have Kevin O'Connell.

It's a little bit of a long answer, but I really, really like it. So I want to play the whole thing for everybody. So it's a couple minutes, but it's really good. From Kevin O'Connell today, talking about working with Josh Dobbs. Yeah, you know, I've kind of been down that road before at some previous stops, and I've kind of learned from those experiences, you know, you'll never be perfect as far as what's the right amount of information to

clearly articulate what you want to say in you know eight to seven seven to eight seconds while also not overloading the player and and kind of forcing them to kind of freeze in the moment so i think i started to get a pretty good feel you know just through the dialogue some of the tv timeout some of my dialogue with josh on sideline, I started to get a pretty good feel with where he was at and his ability to know formations and kind of the intent of certain plays allowed me to get a little bit deeper into the footwork and what to do with his eyes and kind of what I was thinking as the play caller, which are pretty similar to what I would do anyway in a lot of situations with Kirk. It just happened to be that him, you know, Kirk and I had a lot of time one-on-one over, you know,

a lot of experiences over these last two years to be able to build on our communication. I always joke that, you know, it's probably a good thing that they can't talk back to me. I probably would have got a couple, you know, hey, be quiet yesterday. But like I said, Josh, you know, there were some critical downs going back to watch. Just you don't see all the detail in the moment, but just watching him take some of the things I said and put it into action, but then still just go play. That was probably the best part about it was in the end.

So that makes me think, Manny, to tie it into what i asked you that they can do this enough to make a playoff spot and it may be a little bit of a high bar to set anytime it's a backup quarterback but i think that these things are going to be applicable and this relationship could even grow between dobbs and o'connell and the fact is like Dobbs is going to have a game or two here where we're going to go yeah that wasn't good because I've seen him have that game before but that capability to have that connection with your quarterback in the headset and then apply it I think they can do that week in and week out especially if Justin Jefferson comes back and is the same version of himself.

And I think it really, you know, just speaking from a big picture standpoint, I think it really shows that Kevin O'Connell is a pretty damn good coach. And he's not perfect. He's flawed. I know there's always questions about, you know, little things like clock management and, you know, play calling and different things like that. But I think overall, big picture, when you look at everything that went down yesterday and the way he was able to sort of stay in the moment and keep Josh Dobbs in the moment and not have him, you know, not allow him to sort of melt down after, you know, the rough start to when he first got into the game, I think really speaks a lot to, you know, Kevin O'Connell as a

leader of men, and the way that he can connect with quarterbacks, you know, and sort of, you know, bring the best out of whoever is playing quarterback in any given moment, it might not always lead to wins. And sometimes, you know, like you said with Josh Dobbs, you know, we might see a clunker later on down the road here later in the season. But I think more often than not, he's whoever's playing quarterback. The Vikings are going to have a decent shot to win because of the way that he's able to connect with that position. It's a, it's do it, obviously, because he played the position, played it at a pretty

high level collegiately, played it for a few years in the NFL as well as a professional. And then, you know, as an assistant coach, as a coordinator, was able to do a lot of that, too. So I think it just speaks to the quality of a head coach that the Vikings have. And I think that that shows me that I think Kevin O'Connell is going to be a head coach for a really long time. Is it going to be all with the Minnesota Vikings? I think if it does, that's a great sign because that means things go really well for a long time. But I think with just his ability to connect with that position as well as he has, even with Kirk Cousins too, over the last year and a half, I think it speaks a lot to his quality

as a head coach. And it's going to keep him, I think, keep him employed in the NFL for a really long time. What year do I have to stop making the joke about Harbaugh? Like, oh, anybody still want Jim Harbaugh or whatever? uh maybe never I'll just keep on that I had to stop making cracks about wide receivers because they drafted one Jordan Addison and he's really good so I don't have to bring that up anymore but you know these things die hard so I'll keep bringing that up good thing he didn't hire Jim Harbaugh uh but with uh Kevin O'Connell I think what we really saw there is that he did not panic and even talked about this today where he said it's really hard not to freak out because you know how much of an uphill climb it's going to be. is it takes people who are really good at schematics and really good at understanding the game and game planning and all that stuff. And it crushes them into dust.

Like whether it just the weight of the pressure, the criticism, the number of people who are looking to you in these moments, Josh McDaniels, the first victim of the year, just a guy who I totally believe is awesome at offense, but has no, no capability to handle the pressure that goes along with running an

organization. And the same thing with Arthur Smith, that guy was really good at designing an offense for Ryan Tannehill. He turned around his career. I don't doubt his acumen at all for offense, but when it comes to leading an entire organization, leading a team, we've seen a ton of evidence for Kevin O'Connell.

And this is just the most recent drop in the bucket. But with someone like Arthur Smith, it's a great comparison. It's one coach over there who is losing it and who doesn't know how to manage an organization or a game for that matter. And another guy who is remaining calm and finding ways and finding solutions in real time in a lot of different ways, and also has his team not losing it either because they didn't compound mistakes, and there's a lot of little moments that went into that. Let's answer a couple questions, and then we will get into if Josh Dobbs' performance changed our view on the future in any way for the Vikings.

I mean, short term, of course, now we think, okay, they could make the playoffs, but we'll get into the big picture there. Matthew asks, where does this game rank on the crazy Vikings games you've covered? I mean, it's pretty high. I would say, of course, we know what number one is. Number one is the Minneapolis miracle. I'm not sure that it will ever be topped maybe in my entire career. I doubt it. There's nothing I've ever seen like that. The quality of the game, the way that it ended.

And there's, I mean, gosh, there's been a lot of them. Certainly Buffalo is higher than this. You know, when it came to just all the crazy things that happened at one point in the Buffalo game, they had like a 97% chance to win that game. The B bills did. And the Vikings end up coming back and winning it. That was sheer madness. Hard to make a list right off the bat. Certainly Indianapolis last year. There's been, there's been a lot of them. I mean, this team only plays completely insane games. It feels like the game they lost in LA

where Kirk put up like 400 yards or so 450 450. I don't know how many was. But, you know, there's a lot of them that come to mind. But that was certainly up there, Manny. And you remember in your steel trap of a brain every single Vikings game. I mean, I got to say, it's pretty high up there, though, for totally unexpected and also what came out of it. So many things that I feel like we learned about the coach and the team and the culture of this team. Absolutely.

And I think it really shined a light again, like I was saying before, about, you know, Kevin O'Connell's ability to just connect with the position of quarterback, the most important position in the sport, maybe all of sports, but also just the circumstances of, you know, you already got your rookie, you know, third string quarterback starting this game because you lost your starting quarterback the week before with an Achilles tear. Your normal backup is out of the picture right now because he's got a back issue. So here comes this rookie fifth round pick that hasn't seen any game action at all, at least not in the regular season. And he steps in and then all of a sudden he's out of the game with a concussion. And now you're putting in this guy that has been with you for not even an entire week and is like literally on the sidelines going through like cadences with his offensive lineman

like on the fly because he knows he's getting ready to go into this game um and to just come away with a win like that the way they did it's a two-minute drive like he leads him down and throws a really nice touchdown pass to brandon powell i mean it's just that's crazy man it was crazy and i've seen some you know just growing up growing up in Minnesota as a Vikings fan, as a kid, I've seen some crazy games, but this one, this one was pretty, pretty high up there. Not the craziest one I've watched, but it's, it's up there. It reminded me a little bit of Eric Gulliford sneaking off the sideline, or if you remember that, I mean, that's going way back, But there was a game where Jim McMahon, backup quarterback, was in.

And they're losing to the Packers. He's got the ball sort of at the end of the game. And it doesn't look like there's any chance they come back in the game. You know, it's Jim McMahon. He's like beaten up at that point. There's not much left. And finds wide open Eric Gulliford, who wore number 84, coincidentally, wide open. A guy who basically

caught no other passes for the Minnesota Vikings, except that one. And then somebody, it might've been our friend, Patrick Royce jokes that he snuck off the sidelines to catch the pass. And then like Packers fans believed it. Like they thought that that actually had happened and there was like a whole thing. So that that's a fun story to look up. Tim says, we know Kirk ceiling, but have no idea what Dobbs can do in the playoffs. Could be a great story. Going to have to get to the playoffs first. So there's a long way to go for that. And there's some road trips. They're going to have to win games. They've got two against Detroit. They've got Cincinnati. It is not a cakewalk to the end of the season uh but it could it could very well end up being a completely

unexpected great story for sure uh alexander says the vikings scored a season high points without kirk jj derisaw does this mean anything does that mean anything to you man it means a little bit i mean you know i i think part of it was, you know, like you said, I think they were aided a little bit by Arthur Smith's kind of incompetence as a head coach. But look, it was still, I think when you consider the circumstances and just how things led to Dobbs getting into the game in the first place. I think it's still pretty impressive. I mean, and the left tackle, the pronunciation of his last name escapes me right now, but for him, you know, being kind of new to the team too and stepping into that position and holding up okay too,

I think was pretty impressive too. But yeah, it's, when you consider all of that, everything that went into the game, everything that happened, how everything played out, it's it's pretty impressive to have this score the season high in points when we're halfway through the season already. Folks, I hope you've enjoyed listening to us talk about prize picks this year, but if you've missed it, here's how it works. You go to prizepicks.com and it is simple. You pick either more or less between two and six player stat projections, and that's it. Now you're playing. So if it's X number of yards for a quarterback, you just decide, are they going to throw for more or less than that number of yards? But it works

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when I am 78 years old, just like Afadi Adenabo. It's in the fingers. I could do it anytime. What about Bob says, I don't think KOC is getting enough credit for getting 13 wins out of Cousins and playground football coaching this week.

Certainly we're giving him credit for the latter part of that. Last year, I think he was downgraded, especially in the outside world that gave an award to Brian Dable, which I will never understand why it didn't go to Sean McDermott and Kevin O'Connell should have been right there as well. Anyway, dude is good. Hope Kweisi can draft some better players for him. The receiver that he drafted for him rose up above another dude and caught a ball and was hammered out of bounds somehow got both

feet in in very chris carter like fashion uh i think that's a good player um but yes i do agree that they will need more good players through the draft it's just you know a caleb evans gets a fumble i mean who was he drafted by right like ed ingram has shown consistent improvement i'm not saying he's good but all of a sudden now that we're getting more sample size on these players, we are seeing some of them step into these roles and make a difference. And one of them becoming just a flat out star while Justin Jefferson has been gone. So if you drafted multiple starters and a flat out superstar over first two

drafts, it's really about one guy. Like one guy went super bad and that was the first pick. And that's what, you know, of course is going to be the main focus and the trade down and everything else. But if we're evaluating the general manager right now, I think he gets pretty darn high score. He's going to get a real darn high score because this defense is good. And think of the players that they let go but you know what i was thinking about manny was uh delvin tomlinson that they decided that delvin tomlinson was just too expensive and they wanted him they liked him a lot but they drew a line in the sand and they said delvin tomlinson's too expensive i don't want to get too far off the topic on this but i'm just making a point here that like they, they decided to move on from him and

they have been flat out fantastic against the run. They did a great job. Like they knew what they could replace. And that's what this is about like Belichick for so many years. Um, but I, I don't want to go too far down evaluating the GM. Like we're focusing on Josh Dobbs here. So, uh, this is the point right here from Giuseppe. He says, I hope that Dobbs can continue to play well to show the Vikings brass. We can move on from Kirk. Now, I don't know how much Manny Josh Dobbs will impact the Vikings' decision at quarterback, but I would love to know how much you think that Josh Dobbs' play will impact the Vikings' decision at quarterback. I think it's going gonna have a pretty significant impact

just from the standpoint of I think it's a possibility I I I think like I've been saying for weeks I think ultimately they're gonna move on from Kirk Cousins after this season they haven't really given me any indication that they're gonna do otherwise although we've been surprised before but I think they're gonna move on on from kirk and i think they're going to draft a quarterback they're going to find a way to do it with their first round pick next year if they're in the middle of the first round i think they're going to find a way to move up if they see a guy that's attainable that they like they're going to do that and they're going to find a way to get it done i think think how Josh Dobbs comes into play here is that

depending on how he performs the rest of this season, I think you're looking at a guy that you could go into next season as your starting quarterback, as sort of a bridge guy that can give you a chance to compete and stay relevant in these games so that you don't have to throw that young quarterback, whoever it is, if it's Drake May or Caleb Williams or JJ McCarthy, whoever it ends up being. You don't have to throw that guy into the woods or into the into the wolves right away. And you've got a guy that is at least decent as a sort of a bridge quarterback for you, he's mobile, he's athletic, he can make some plays and help you win some games. I think that's ultimately how Josh Dobbs can come into play here.

Now, if he's terrible the rest of the way here, then you've got to think, okay, how do we go into next season we're still going to take our young guy but now maybe we have to dip into free agency and get sort of that bridge veteran guy that can step in um so i think that's how it's going to play out as far as you know josh dobbs is concerned how his performance is going to impact what happens next offseason and into 2024. I think that what you have to be looking at, aside from what Kwesi has already done, his work on how much it's going to cost, he said he's already talked to Kirk's agent, which makes me think like there's already some discussion, some idea of like what it would cost to bring him back and what your projections say about his age and about the chances he gets hurt

again. And look, I mean, anybody can have an Achilles injury. We saw it happened to Cam Akers. He's a young guy and he had it happen with his other Achilles. But if you're going to talk about what his health record was before, I don't know that you could do that because it changes after you're a certain age. And you and I are of the age where we are feeling that all the time where it's like, is this supposed to be hurting? Like, is this something serious? Do I ask a doctor about this or am I just like old now? Uh, but like, that's the, there's a lot of miles. There's a lot of hits. There's a lot of whatever. So you have to factor that in, even though he's had a pristine health record before.

So they've already done that. They already have that evaluation. But the thing is with Kevin O'Connell is what he is going to see is how much he can pull the puppet strings on a quarterback. And also, and a lot of you have brought this up in the comments and I haven't wanted to go really too far down this road because Kirk cousins just got hurt and was playing really well and they were winning games. And like, I don't want to go too far on this, but the mobility element is just legit. We have seen it over many quarterbacks in the NFL, and this is not a mildly mobile quarterback.

It's like a very mobile quarterback. This is a dude who can really ball. And I think that when you see a call not work, but a guy bails you out because he's mobile and you feel like you can make a mistake as a play caller and your quarterback will make a play for you. It doesn't mean he wants to stay with Dobbs forever, but it means that there are quarterbacks who are coming out. Almost every quarterback who's coming out now has an athletic element to their game. And I think when,

if you combine those two things, because to me, it's O'Connell that you would have to sell more than Casey who didn't extend Kirk. Anyway, it's O'Connell that you would have to sell more on. Hey, other quarterbacks could play for you as much as you love and respect her

cousins. Other quarterbacks could also maybe make you right and if you draft one you are giving him a situation that is so good that josh jobs a journeyman former fourth rounder backup who's barely played in the nfl comes in and is able to do that with you and with your offense and with your receivers i mean it's a pretty compelling case to the head coach i think that someone else could play quarterback for this team and think about this and this is what i've said whenever people have when we talked about them moving on and going to a younger quarterback whenever people say to things like well what if what if it's christian ponder What if it's another Christian Ponder?

My counter to that is, what if it's not? What if they draft a young quarterback next spring, and he's good, and he's great, because Kevin O'Connell is really good at connecting with quarterbacks, like we just talked about five minutes ago, and it works out. Those are the kind of things that you have to think about, and I think if you're Kevin O'Connell, you have to you have to consider like. Again, Kirk Cousins is not going to play forever, and he's not the only guy, as we just saw yesterday. He's not the only guy that can run that offense and execute it. And the guy I just saw yesterday has an element that Kirk doesn't bring to the table. And if you can find a gem like that in the draft, who's young and cheap to start out his career. Now you can start building a roster around him.

You've already got some really good pieces in place for him to be successful. You build, you use that extra cap space that you're going to have because you have a young quarterback and a cheap quarterback. And now you're going to have because you have a young quarterback and a cheap quarterback. And now you're just opening the door for several possibilities, for several places for this team to go over the next five, six years. And if you draft a guy and he's great, if he's Patrick Mahomes, even if he's just like Justin Herbert and he's young and he's talented and he's

really good, if you make other subsequent moves after that, you can put yourself in a really good position to compete for championships for a really, really long time. And I think ultimately that's how you're going to have to sell it to Kevin O'Connell because the reality is with Kirk Cousins is while he's played really well for you and he was playing really well before he got hurt like you said he's going to be 36 years old next year and you just don't know how much more he's going to have in the tank and look eventually if Kevin O'Connell is going to be around if he sees himself being around this team and being the head coach of this team for a long time eventually at some point you're going to have to have a different guy starting at quarterback anyway so it just makes the most sense

to when you have a golden opportunity like this to go that route now i mean i think that even just you know looking at houston and cj stroud was a tremendous prospect and that's that's one of the funniest you know i was talking about earlier in the show about people who are like, you doubted this person. I've seen a few times you people doubted C.J. Stroud. The dude was drafted like number two overall. I don't think there were that many people who were doubting. It was only the goofy S2 cognition stuff, which people don't really understand how it works. And they, some, I guess, draft analysts ran with that nonsense and they got fooled.

But I don't know. There's a gazillion draft analysts. So I'm not sure who we're talking about here. But the point is, you can see what happens right there. And among the many examples, if you do hit on the guy and then all of a sudden it's gas pedal all the way down. But I think that one scenario we don't consider enough is if you only kind of hit on the guy, you can still be really good. The Philadelphia Eagles were really

good with Carson Wentz before he got hurt. I think that changed his mobility a bit and his personality went to hell. But aside from that, like he wasn't that great. Like, I mean, Jared Goff, people don't have a ton of respect for Jared Goff. They probably should have more, but that team went to the Super Bowl. That's the point. It doesn't have to be Mahomes. And there's just a million times I'm going to say that before. If you can make Josh Dobbs do this. Although, of course, we'll see if that carries over from week to week.

Let me get to a few more questions. Mike says, do you think KOC will stick with his immobile quarterback playbook with uh dobs or hall the rest of the year or will he add some read option plays or even design runs well i know who he's not gonna ask to run again that would be jaron hall if he has to come in the game um look i i i felt horrible for jaron hall but also there's a speed power adjustment that has to be made. He's not a runner in the NFL. He was a runner in college. He's not a runner in the NFL. Josh Dobbs is a runner in the NFL, but Jaron Hall is not. And that's why when Dorian Thompson Robinson gets picked to people like, Oh, he's a pretty good athlete. He ran in college. They're like, no,

no, no, no. The standard is much higher for athleticism, strength, size, which Dobbs is a very big guy. You know that that's it's a little different. So they won't do it if Jaron Hall has to play again with Dobbs. I could see it, especially since the run game has just been so bad. I could definitely see it. Daniel says even if they win half their games, they might be in the playoffs against NFC teams. They can win. Yeah, I mean, they can win half. Yeah, I agree. That seventh spot is right there to be taken. You just can't blow games like Chicago, Green Bay, and so forth.

CJ says, I'm sure we're all thinking it could Dobbs be a reasonable cost option to build around. Then use picks and cap to accelerate the full competitive part of that. That is where we are sort of going past go for me. Could I see them making the playoffs with Josh Dobbs? Certainly. If Josh Dobbs ended up being the next, I don't know who, Manny, like who started their career one and nine as a fourth round draft pick and then became a starting quarterback.

Like there's probably a few, but it's not a long list yeah is it possible yeah but that's one where we're gonna have to slow the roll a little bit on like could josh dobbs be the future quarterback that i would take my time with is it impossible it's not impossible i mean bro Brock Purdy right now is the franchise quarterback for the 49ers. So it's not impossible when you can stack the roster as much as you can. And that's, that's always been the thing, right? Like Matt Hasselbeck is my go-to toward a guy that I never thought was all that gifted, but had an unbelievable team for a number of years and really, really excellent all time, great coaching. And they went to a Super Bowl, and they were really, really good with him. Jake DeLome was kind of the same way.

I love that comparison to Josh Dobbs. Jake DeLome, I now absolutely love this. Dude is super gritty. It's not amazingly accurate. Kind of wild with the football a little bit. Runs, I now like that a lot. But I just think it's way too reactionary to say oh yeah i could see him starting in 2024 and he's their guy but it's not out of their own possibility no it's not

i the way i kind of look at josh dobbs and and you know this you know from text conversations that we had behind the scenes as like a tennessee vol like I'm rooting for Josh Dobbs to just have a really nice long career in the NFL even if he's just the journeyman Josh McCown type where he's just bouncing from team to team to team I think it'd be really cool because I'm just just as a you know as a Vols fan like I'm just rooting for him that aside I think I'm kind of thinking like, do you remember back in the mid-2000s when the Bengals drafted Carson Palmer and Carson Palmer won the Heisman with USC and he was this highly touted quarterback that was coming into the league, number one overall pick, et cetera, et cetera.

The Bengals did not play Carson Palmer right away they played John Kitna to start out and John Kitna came in and he played really well you go when you go and look at his statistics he played really well and the Bengals were kind of you know Marvin Lewis had just became the head coach the Bengals were kind of, you know, Marvin Lewis had just became the head coach. The Bengals were kind of like this 500 team that, you know, was competing. They weren't getting, you know, the Bruce Coslett days were over for the Cincinnati Bengals at that point. And John Kitna was this guy that had been kind of anointed as this young starting quarterback in Seattle with Mike Holmgren. That kind of fell apart, but Kitna was like still good enough to keep himself in the league. And he performed really well for the Bengals. But I think everybody kind of knew like, no, they invested into Carson Palmer. He's going to be the future, but John Kittner is in there and he's going to hold down the fort

until Carson Palmer is really like ready to go and step in and take over the franchise. That's kind of what I'm envisioning and hoping that Josh Dobbs can be, that he just comes in, plays really well. Vikings are probably not going to go to the Super Bowl with him or anything like that or an NFC title game or anything like that, but he just plays well enough and he keeps the team competitive. And then when that young quarterback that they take, hopefully next spring, is ready to go, he can step in and seamlessly,

you know, step into that starting role and take over as a franchise leader. I think if it plays out like that, I think that would be ideal for this entire dynamic going forward. Folks, I cannot believe how many sports are going on right now. And guess what? There's a way to go to all of them with affordable tickets. My friends, you are going to want to check out Game Time. It is the fast and easy way to buy tickets to any sports event that you want to attend and much, much more. One of the cool parts about GameTime is that they have flash deals on last minute tickets and a low price guarantee, which means if you find something lower in the section or row, they will credit you 110%. You also get images of your seat locations, which I love because those maps can be a little confusing. Buy tickets in seconds and have them arrive right there on your phone.

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Last-minute tickets. Lowest price guaranteed. Okay, so we got your list to get to. And I also have created a quiz, like from the old magazines, for how much are you dobsing? So I'm going to get to that in a second. But first, I want to tell everybody, guess where we're going to be in the second week of December? Well, me. Manny's going to be back here.

Sorry, Manny. I mean, you can come if you want to, actually. It's going to be Las Vegas. That's where we're going. So if you want to come with Manny, you certainly can. Going to Las Vegas to stay at Circa Las Vegas. Escaping the Minnesota December weather. Going out there.

Hanging out there before I cover the football game that Sunday. It will be Minnesota. It will be Las Vegas. This game suddenly becomes very relevant and Vegas is back in the mix now. So at Circa, you're going to be able to find me outside at Stadium Swim watching games on their unbelievably gigantic television. They have heated pools out there.

So even if it's a little bit on the cooler side, you could still have that summer experience outside at Circa. And it's one of the coolest places on earth. And we're going to have a special party that Friday night for Minnesota fans with drink specials, two tickets to give away. So come meet me there. Talk football at the amazing Overhang Bar inside Circa. You have to RSVP for the party. So if you go to Circa Las Vegas, go to where it says Sportsbook and you can

find it there. Huddle up at the Overhang. That is the place where you can find it. So I'm going to make a whole weekend of it in Vegas at Circa when Minnesota goes there. And it is located on Fremont Street. You can really make a fun time. So we'll have a great getaway there. Go to circa lasvegas.com for more details, book your spot today. And I will see you there. And that is quickly, quickly approaching. Let me just scroll real quick to the comment section. And then we will get to your list of unexpected backup quarterback performances in Minnesota Vikings history, which is an amazing list. Skull City Blues says, no way Cousins comes back now. KOC has fresh clay.

He can mold that will listen to him and does not have a panic abort button. Yeah, there were a couple times where I thought maybe Dobbs needed a bit of a panic abort button when he had some pressure there. Matthew says KOC and Kweisi like Kirk, but only at a price that doesn't hurt their ability to build a playoff winning team. I agree with that. That seems how they've approached just about everybody. What about Bob says I'm already sold sold koc will elevate any quarterback under his coaching just need a guy with a high ceiling and watch out do not totally disagree with that i think maybe a little on the reactionary side to what we just saw but i also think that most of most of it is sustainable um ken says ponder has done so much harm to this fan base even years after being gone

and now many years after being gone. Actually, fans are so terrified of another bust like Ponder. They won't open up to the idea of drafting a quarterback. I think that that amount of fans has really pushed to the other side, like as the years have gone by and the whole like, hey, you know, who's going to be better than Kirk? Like, well, you know, other's going to be better than Kirk? Like, well, you know, other people could possibly or at least win more with the complete team. CJ says Hasselbeck and DeLome run for Dobbs over a few years would be awesome. Settle for Keenum 2017.

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm never counting anything out after seeing that. So after covering every bit of that, and you know what I'm not doing, Manny? I have made a declaration yesterday. As we go forward with this Dobbs thing, there's probably going to be ups and downs. I refuse to be dragged into any sort of, is Dobbs really this good?

Discourse. This is great. And if it lasts, it's really great. And this is, this is great. And if it lasts, it's really great. And those are the only two options. If it doesn't, then Hey, it didn't.

But 2017 was brutal at times because fans wouldn't stop fighting with each other over whether Keenum was actually good. And you know, who was responsible for that is really Mike Zimmer who kept telling you he's not good, but that, that was, that was frustrating at times to deal with. And if I were to go back and recover that season, I would pay no attention to that. I mean,

I'd of course talk about what Zimmer was saying, but I would not get involved with, is Case about to fall off the edge of the earth? Is he going to come back? Is it just a pop-up season, whatever? I would just ignore that and just try to ride the ride. Yeah, I think, especially at this point now, I think you just have to look at this situation, what it is right now, as just try to enjoy it. You know, I mean, forget about the future for a second. I know we got kind of got talking about the future about what's going to happen next year and how are they going

to handle things if Dobbs continues to play well but also I I'm just looking to see just how this plays out this season and then whatever happens after that just happens I've said many times what I think that they should do after this season, but also I think just in this moment now that it appears that this team could still potentially make the postseason. When a week ago, I didn't think that that

was going to be possible with Kirk Cousins being injured for the season. Now it's kind of intriguing to see like, okay, how is this going to play out? Can this happen? If it does, that'd be pretty cool. It'd be pretty cool to see it happen. So I think you just have to kind of find ways to enjoy this season. It's unorthodox. We didn't predict this. We didn't see this coming at all. And I think because of that it's what makes it intriguing it's what makes it fun it's what makes this season uh fun despite you know losing the starting quarterback um an entire week

ago all right let's get to your list and then we'll do the are you full dobs quiz which i'm not confident is great but we can have fun with it anyway. I just invented it right before the show. So I asked you to come up with the five most unexpected backup quarterback, you know, performances in Vikings history, or it could also be your history of watching the Vikings. I don't know if you went back to Joe cap or not, but it could just be your,

that one is unexpected for sure. Guy comes out of the CFL and then leads them all the way to the Superbowl, but five unexpected backup quarterback performances. And the one rule is you can't use the same guy because you would be able to use one of them probably over and over again. So you can't use the same guy. What is your list? Okay. So I kind of went a route of, I kind of went more of like, you know, the, the

best performances that were kind of unexpected because of, you know, the circumstances in which they, they kind of came about. Um, so number five is, and some people may be a little surprised to see this lower on the list. They might think it might have been higher, but I'm going to go with 2010, Week 16, Vikings 24, Eagles 14. Joe Webb starts at Lincoln Financial Field on a Tuesday night on NBC because it was supposed to be the Sunday night game. There was a blizzard in the Northeastern United States. Philadelphia got hit really hard.

The game got pushed to Tuesday. And Joe Webb comes in, starts for the Vikings because Brett Favre is out and Tavares Jackson is out. And here comes Joe Webb, who's like a super freakish athletic quarterback, but he's also like, is this guy really a quarterback? Can he play wide receiver? Like, what is he really?

And the Vikings and Leslie Frazier at that point, because Brad Childress had gotten fired, were just like, we got to start somebody, so let's just start this guy on this Tuesday. And he comes in, and he beats an Eagles team that was headed for the playoffs and the eagles were fighting for uh playoff position they were trying to get you know as high as seat as they possibly could uh to maybe have a first round buy and that loss uh just really kind of crushed them and locked them into having having to play in the first weekend of the playoffs. So Vikings win 24-14. Not overwhelmingly impressive stats by Joe Webb in the game,

but they got the win. He goes 17 out of 26, 195 yards, and he runs for a touchdown that is really wild because he scrambles out to the right, makes a couple of guys miss, and kind of just weaves his way into the end zone, an impressive run, and the Vikings go on to win the game. They were also aided by, I think Antoine Winfield had like a scoop and score in that game as well.

Adrian Peterson ran for like 200 yards too. So it kind of helped them win the game, but Joe Webb played pretty well in that night. Number four, this is an interesting one because it was actually in a loss for the Vikings. It's the only one on my list that was in a loss. And it was 1999, week six. The Vikings lose at the Silverdome to the Lions 25-23. But Jeff George comes in after Randall Cunningham is benched.

And the Vikings are down 19 to nothing at halftime. And Danny Green's like, we got to do something. Randall Cunningham's not playing well. We got to put in Jeff George to try and just add some juice to this offense. And Jeff George comes in and leads a comeback and puts the Vikings in a position to win. They end up coming up short. But Jeff George goes 10 of 12 for 214 yards and two touchdowns and a pick in the second half against the Lions, and the Vikings, who were down by 19 at the half, end up only losing by two. Number three, 2003, week four,

Vikings 35-7 over the Niners. Gus Verratt comes in, starts the game after Dante Culpepper got hurt the week before in Detroit. And Gus goes 16-21 for 267 yards, four touchdowns, no picks. Randy Moss just torches the 49ers secondary. And that was a hyped-up game because that was the to versus randy moss so much hype going in like who's the best who's really the best wide receiver in football and randy moss kind of got the best of to that day i remember uh to was shown on the sidelines uh yelling at greg knapp who was the offensive coordinator for the 49ers who i think is no longer with us anymore Greg Knapp but I remember that scene of

T.O. just going just nuts just going crazy because he's competitive he wants to match what Randy Moss is doing and it wasn't happening but Gus Farratt was awesome in that day in that game and he started a couple more games until Dante came back from the from the injury and played well. A real quick note on that It's the highest rated quarterback rated game in Vikings history by a quarterback. And I did a story with Gus Farratt a couple of years ago going through that game, what he remembered from it. And I think it was maybe Nate Burleson's first touchdown. It could have been. It was somebody's first touchdown as a Viking because he talked about remembering it because of that.

But it was very cool to have him go through that. And also, the thing I always respected about Gus was that he, and we've had him on shows before and things like that, you know he's a great guy. And he would talk about, with Randy Moss, I'm just throwing it to Moss. I'm the Vikings quarterback. I know that I might not be here for very long.

I'm just letting that ball loose to Randy Moss of course then the first iteration of Gus Farad and the second one he played okay enough to win some games but he didn't have Moss but I just I just love that about him that he was like forget it I'm just throwing this ball to Randy Moss and that was when he told me that when you saw Moss throw up the arm that that was when he was changing a route. And I didn't know that until Gus told us that he was supposed to do something else. But when he would throw up the arm, it was like,

I'm just doing a go because I like what I see. And then that meant he was throwing the ball to him. So that, yeah, that's a, that is a great pick. And this is why I wanted you to do this. That is a great, great selection for an all-time backup quarterback showing up. Awesome pick. Yeah. Fantastic. And shout out to Gus Farratt for sure okay number two uh 2001 week 13 this is one that might be

forgotten about because it was kind of a lost season for the Vikings uh 2001 was the year Danny got fired and they finished 5 and 11 uh but 2001, Vikings 42, Titans 24 at the Metrodome. Todd Bauman steps in and starts for the Vikings. And part of it, he had Randy Moss to throw to as well, threw to Randy Moss a lot in this game. But Todd Bauman goes 21-31, 348 yards, four touchdowns and a pick. And the Vikings blow out the Titans. Really impressive performance for a guy that really nobody else in the NFL had really heard of.

And Todd Bauman had been with the team for a handful of years at that point. So great performance by him. Side story, I actually got to play basketball with Todd Baumann briefly. A story that my stepdad, who many people might know, played for the Vikings for seven years. And in the late 90s, they had a traveling team, a bunch of current Vikings players. And then my stepdad, they would travel to different like schools around the state and they would play like a pickup basketball game with like the faculty of that school. So one time it went and it was Todd Bauman, Big David Dixon, Matthew Hatchett,

Robert Tate, and Yo Murphy, I think were the guys on the team. And then my stepdad was on the team as well. And so I'm just sitting there watching the the guys on the team. And then my stepdad was on the team as well. And so I'm just sitting there watching the game, watching them play. And then my stepdad comes out, comes over to me and he says, by the way, I'm like 15 years old. This is like 1999. My stepdad, Oscar, comes over to me and says,

hey man, do you want to play? I was like, sure. And he goes over, hands me a jersey, I throw on the jersey and I get out on the court. And I'm playing basketball with, like, Todd Bauman and David Dixon, Matthew Hatch. It was really, really cool. But, yeah, side story there.

But, yeah, Todd Bauman, awesome, awesome performance that day against the Tennessee Titans. And then number one, I'm going to go with 2017, week three, Case Keenum. The Vikings beat the Bucs 34-17, and Case Keenum lights up the Buccaneers. 25-33, 369 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions. And the reason why I have Case number one on this list, ahead of Baumann and Farrad and Jeff George, those three guys, I penalized them just a little bit because their performances, they had Randy Moss to throw to. And when you have Randy Moss, it changes everything

for just about any quarterback. Case Keenum, you had Stephon Diggs and Adam Thielen, both terrific wide receivers at that time but they weren't Randy Moss so K still put on a great performance kind of unexpected because it was week three they were just coming off that bad loss to Pittsburgh in week two cases first start after Sam Bradford got hurt um and he just lit them up and it was great. So that is my top five list there. You talk about being surprised. That surprised me.

I mean, I knew that Kayski even had a few games in his career, but to throw for 369 yards and a lot of it was grow the ball up somewhere in the ballpark of Stefan Diggs or Adam Thielen and they'll catch it. And that ended up being most of the strategy for the rest of the season. It was like little check down stuff to Kyle Rudolph, handoffs to the running backs, screens, which their screen game was great that year,

and then just throw it up and see what happens and let God take the wheel. And so often the ball went into the hands of those receivers, including, of course, the Minneapolis miracle. But that was, that was as big of a whooping as this franchise has put on anybody since that time. That yes, indeed was unexpected. And I wondered if that was going to be your pick and a great, great selection, tremendous list. Very, very well done. Let me answer just one question. Then we can get to my quick quiz that we will close the show with. And if people are young, I'm sorry, you don't

remember these, but they used to have these little things in the back of magazines that would be like, how good of a boyfriend are you or something? And you just like one to five on a bunch of things. And then you get it and it would say you're a terrible boyfriend and that would be it uh but that's what i've tried to create with josh dobbs there's a connection uh kevin said i'm worried that ownership koc quacey will not allow kirk to leave he won't bring us to super bowl but keeps the team relevant and always in the hunt and in the playoffs the one thing about that kevin is they had a chance after a 13 win season to extend Kirk Cousins and they said no. So they've already said no to keeping him around. And it is kind of felt like the plan from day one was to replace Kirk Cousins after a couple of years.

And, you know, look, if they keep going in this direction and winning with Dobbs or at least playing competitive football and having a decent offense even when they can't run the ball yeah I mean I think there's a decent chance that everyone is convinced to move on and it really stuck out to me that Quasey said it's not about whether I like him or not it's about a lot of different things a lot of different factors and that to me said like this is not a commitment to Kirk Cousins it still could happen I don't know uh I you know there's very mixed messages within you know what Kwesi said what Kevin O'Connell has said but it I'd always go back to that decision last year there was an offer on the table for from Kirk's side here's what we want

to sign an extension and they said nope that's too much for us and if that happens again then he won't be the quarterback here uh and look I mean if Dobbs continues to play like this and they win games then they're probably going to say why would we pay 30 plus 40 plus million dollars for this and that price is still going to be high, I think, regardless of the injury. All right, quick quiz, Manny. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you agree with this statement? Trent Dilfer, Nick Foles, Rex Grossman, and Matt Hasselbeck are my heroes. 1 to 10. Okay, wait, repeat the question one more time.

All right, and this is a quick quiz where I'm going to ask you to do some one to tens and then we're going to add up to a score and that will tell us how much you are in love with the josh dobbs thing how dobbsian how dobbs like you are okay here's the statement trent dilfer nick foals rexman, and Matt Hasselbeck are my heroes. The connection to those quarterbacks is that they're backup quarterbacks or fringe guys who were in the Super Bowl. How much are they heroes of yours, Manny? On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say, I would say about a six. And the reason why is because I think it's really cool that all of those guys got to the Superbowl. But I think the reason why

like they're not like 100% my heroes is because I think sometimes people use them as examples as to why, well, anybody can play quarterback. Well, Trent Dilfer can win a Super Bowl, then that means, of course, Kirk Cousins can win a Super Bowl. And I don't think that a lot of people really take into consideration circumstance. They don't take into consideration era and and time in which this happened uh type of thing so i i think it's awesome i think trent dilfer winning a super bowl with the ravens and and with just like no offense whatsoever outside

of like jamal lewis running for like 1200 1200 yards is like one of the coolest things ever considering how great that defense was, but it's just not a realistic thing. So I try to kind of keep myself, you know, I try to be realistic about that kind of thing. Like that's not a realistic thing. So it's cool it's great but i try not to hold it in too high uh too high regard okay six out of ten very detailed explanation there yes but but i agree with you i agree with you we love backup quarterbacks but trust me the number of times i heard this when i was doing buffalo radio like ej manuals the quarterback

and people would call and be like like Trent Dill for one. We need a defensive line. You're like, okay, I, uh, sure. Sure.

If you can build the 2000 Ravens, I'll agree with you. Um, one to 10, how much do you agree with this statement? 10 is obviously, uh, the most agreement zero is not agreeing at all.

Scrambling for a quarterback is very important to me. One to 10. How important is scrambling for a quarterback is very important to me one to ten how important is scrambling for your type of quarterback uh nine i think it's huge i think it's especially in today's nfl i think you got to have a guy that can that can move around he doesn't have to be michael baker lamar jackson but like he's got to be able to move around a little bit. He's got to be able to get outside of the pocket and make some things happen when things break down. Offensive lines, even though the Vikings have a pretty good unit now,

offensive lines are not what they used to be back in the nineties. You got to have a guy that can move around because you're just not going to be able to protect, protect statues the way you could in the 90s and early 2000s. So I'll go about a nine. Super and super important. Like that, like that. The chat is very much into this as well. How much on a scale of one to ten does Kevin O'Connell dictate the success of his quarterback? One to ten. And we are certainly prisoner of the moment when it comes to this one. But try to ground yourself one to 10.

I'll go about a seven. I think that there is something there in terms of his influence, kind of the positivity that I think he brings to the table to keep guys from melting down and falling apart because we didn't see a ton of that from Kirk Cousins last year. And Kirk had really started to play well before he got hurt. But I do think also talent and ability has to come into play there as well. You got to have, you got to have some ability at least.

And I think Josh Dobbs has some ability. So I'll go with about a seven there. Okay. Like it. How did you do in high school science class? One out of 10. Great question. I think I did maybe like a five or six.

Wasn't a huge science person in high school. That's way better than me. This would not have been a high score for me. Would not have been a high score for me Would not have been a high score And agree or disagree with this statement Zero is disagree, ten is agree Smart people do not commit Terrible turnovers

Do you agree with that or disagree? If you're a smart person Say like a rocket scientist You do not commit terrible turnovers Do you agree or disagree? I completely disagree because josh dobbs is really smart and he committed a couple of really bad turnovers yesterday so i mean the safety was was awful and then the i think we thought it was an interception at first

but it turns out it was they ruled it as a lost fumble so technically he threw no picks yesterday uh but that was kind of a bad play too because he was holding on to the ball a little bit too long and it was just kind of disastrous and josh dobbs as far as his brain is concerned he's brilliant he's super smart but he made two really bad mistakes yesterday and there were a couple throws later in the game too that uh could have easily been picked off or just weren't the right that right decision that ended up not really hurting him so yeah even the smartest guys can make dumb can make dumb mistakes too. Okay, so where would that put you if disagree is zero and agree is 10? So if you're not into the idea that smart people don't commit turnovers,

closer to zero. If you think smart people do not commit turnovers, closer to 10. I would say it's a zero. Because I think even the smartest guys in the league will make a dumb play here and there. Okay. Ryan Fitzpatrick never committed any turnovers that I can recall. Even though he, right? Okay, so here's how the scale works.

Now, he committed a ton of turnovers, if you missed the sarcasm. If you are less than a 15 for a total score, you are not buying Dobbs at all. You are not Dobbs pilled or whatever they call it these days on the internet. If you are between 15 and 25 with your score, then you are kind of buying Josh Dobbs, you know, just sort of. And if you are 25 plus, that means you have become a Dobbser. A Dobbsite is what you've become've become okay so let's add it up you had six for how much you love backup quarterbacks that made the super bowl you had nine nice uh for how much scrambling matters to you so you've already gotten to 15 so you've

surpassed the first two questions that you are somewhat buying josh dobbs how much does kevin o'connell dictate success seven so that puts us up to 22 and with how you did in high school science class is actually going to tip the scales here manny you were five i was only i'm only a one or two on this that puts you into give me all the dobbs category is what I called it. So look, you got a tattoo, a picture of Josh Dobbs on your island. And there's no other choice. I'm rocking Rocky top right now, baby. I'm all in. Even though you think he's going to turn the ball over like crazy, no matter how smart he is, you are into the Dobbs. So I hope you played along at home and had some fun with that.

And I I've got, you know, I'm seeing people's scores and everything else. But every, yeah, everybody's everybody's saying, give me the knob. So it's made, I got to say it's made for a couple of really fun days. I saw NASA tweeting out as Bob mentions the pastor and that's tremendous. That's tremendous. If you like, look, this guy is the biggest nerd, maybe like top five who's ever played in football. Okay. So of course a completely cheesy pun works perfectly for him. So the pastor, not it is, um, there are worse things to be known for the being a rocket scientist, I would say. So lean into that as well. Manny, great stuff. Loved your list.

I've had so much fun on Mondays and Thursdays doing this show with you. We will do it again on Thursday to preview the Vikings and the Saints and the rest of the things going on in the football universe. So we'll talk to you all then. Thanks very much, Manny, and for everybody who stopped on by. So had a good time. Football.