Dobbs gets chance to show Steelers he’s a winner
Sometimes nice guys really do finish first.
Or in the case of Joshua Dobbs, they at least start first.
On Wednesday, the Pittsburgh Steelers announced the former University of Tennessee star will start at quarterback in the team’s first game of this preseason, against the New York Giants on Friday night. Before anyone mistakes this for a permanent decision by coach Mike Tomlin, it’s imperative to understand veteran starter Ben Roethlisberger is resting and backup Landry Jones is sidelined with an abdominal injury.
So even though Tomlin and Tennessee Volunteers coach Butch Jones are supposedly good buddies, this is strictly business. Or necessity. Or, as Tomlin framed it, according to a story at ESPN. com: “One man’s misfortune is another man’s opportunity. I know (Dobbs) is excited about it. I know I’m excited about watching him play the quarterback position in that (starting) group.”
Yet for everyone who believes hard work, discipline and high character should be rewarded, this is that example. No, Dobbs might not be the most accurate passer in the history of Tennessee football. He’s not the most successful in terms of career victories or Southeastern Conference championships. It’s doubtful anyone would list him among the two or three best quarterbacks in Vols history, though perhaps they should.
Consider that he was 3-0 in bowl games and almost single-handedly engineered the most important win of the Jones era as a sophomore. He ran for three touchdowns and 166 yards and threw for two touchdowns and 301 yards in a stunning overtime triumph at South Carolina after the Vols trailed by double digits late.
Without that win, the Vols likely would have missed out on a bowl in each of their first two seasons under Jones, which might have caused recruiting to suffer, which might have forced the program to begin looking for its fourth head coach in nine years.
But Dobbs prevented that. Other than coming up short
against the crimson elephant in every Southeastern Conference locker room that is Alabama, the aerospace engineering major left the Big Orange fan base overjoyed overall with long wished-for wins over Florida and Georgia, including a last-second Hail Mary victory pass to Jauan Jennings last season between the Bulldogs’ hedges.
Said Dobbs to the media Wednesday, when asked how he saw his role in this unusual circumstance: “You’re a communicator. You have to understand, you have to say it with confidence and speak clearly and loudly for your team to hear. You have to own the position. You have to own the playbook.”
Dobbs owns the knowledge of pretty much every book he has read since elementary school, when his parents back in Alpharetta, Ga., first started taking him to college campuses.
Noted UT aerospace engineering professor Matthew Mench in an excellent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette earlier this week: “(Dobbs) was a four-star quarterback recruit, but if you looked at his academic profile, he would have been a five-star recruit for aero. He had an enthusiasm for aerospace engineering just rolling out of him.”
Thus did he earn a degree from a five-year major in just four years before becoming a fourthround draft pick of the Steelers, whose quarterbacks have sometimes been labeled more brawn than brain (Terry Bradshaw, Roethlisberger), which will change immediately each time Dobbs takes the field.
But that’s not why we should all pull for him to succeed. This is why: The same Post-Gazette article describes the quarterback meeting a young boy at football camp who was suffering from the same autoimmune hair-loss condition Dobbs has been forced to endure — alopecia.
“He was 5 or 6 and bald,” Dobbs said. “It didn’t affect me until junior high and in college, but for me it’s an opportunity to change lives. Football’s given me a platform. I tell those kids, you know, ‘Talk is talk. As long as you just put your head down and you work hard, you can achieve anything and everything that you want to. That’s all you have to worry about.’”
Both Dobbs and Tomlin know hard work alone won’t earn him a spot on a talented Steelers roster. He’ll have to produce on the field, beginning Friday night against the Giants.
“At that position, you’re defined by how you perform in certain circumstances,” Tomlin told the media Wednesday. “It will be good to get him in that stadium on Friday and watch him, in terms of putting his skills on display.”
One of those circumstances took place Wednesday as Dobbs was questioned by the media. Someone asked him the differences he’d find between the college and pro games.
Without missing a beat, Dobbs begins talking about thirdand-8, 19 seconds left, more than 10 yards from the end zone. He talked of how a first down in bounds won’t stop the clock in the NFL but will in college. He mapped out everything perfectly. Then someone asked how this apparent theoretical situation ended.
Speaking clearly and with confidence, Dobbs smiled.
“We scored a touchdown to end it,” he said. “Always a good sign.”
Of course, anyone who witnessed the Hail Mary to Jennings at Georgia last season knows there’s nothing theoretical about that ending where Dobbs is concerned. He has proven time and time again that he can achieve anything and everything he wishes to under the most trying of circumstances.
And because of that, regardless of how he has earned this opportunity, no one should be surprised if Dobbs puts his head down and works hard enough to make Pittsburgh’s opening-game roster and beyond, the former Vol as good an example of five-star heart, brains and character as the NFL may ever see.