All 22 Tuesday: Josh Dobbs Proves…Just Keep Ballin
At its highest levels, football is a game of precision. It has been documented time and time again. “Game of inches” “Difference in winning and losing”. There are many more. Today however; we want to point out that when all seems lost…just keep ballin. Let’s look at Josh Dobbs and the Minnesota Vikings this week for our All 22 Tuesday play of the week.
FirstDown PlayBook is not going to even take the time to tell you the storyline of this game. Either you watched it (sorry Falcons fans) heard about it or read about it. It was an exceptional performance by Josh Dobbs with no practice reps. However, we want to focus on two very specific things.
The first one is that when plays are run incorrectly they can be so confusing to the defense that they work. We won’t pretend to know who was not in the right place on this play but we are pretty certain someone was. We are almost as certain that it was because Josh Dobbs, understandably, called the play partially wrong.
Dobbs Probably Called The Play Slightly Wrong But More Importantly He Kept Playing
That brings us to the second part of todays All 22 Tuesday blog and probably more important part. Football is still a game, so regardless of the circumstances, just keep playing, because you never know. There were other plays that we could look at but we chose this one. It was the first Vikings’ touchdown of the day.
You Don’t Think Ohio State Knew What They Were Doing On This? Brilliant.
As you look at this play, a few things jump out at you. You can see the receiver come over late and barely get set (if he really does). This play is what we call a “Slide Naked Boot”. This means that the quarterback is going to boot out and someone from the backfield is going to slide into the flat. In this case it was the running back.
The problem is that the back wasn’t the only one who released. The receiver ran a return route in the back of the end zone which is normal if he was supposed to be on that side of the formation. It is possible that either the tight end or the fullback were supposed to release after their initial block.
Click On The Play Below To Watch This Week’s All 22 Tuesday Video
However, both the tight end and fullback executed slam release blocks to the flat. Hold on. We are not done yet. The backside receiver with a close split also runs the over. There were five receivers in the vicinity when Josh Dobbs releases the ball.
This is often a recipe for disaster in the form of a pick off of a tipped ball. Not this time though. The Vikings had so many targets in the area that the Falcons were confused. As you will see, the running back slides into the end zone pretty much wide open. Josh Dobbs finds him and picks up momentum as the day goes on.
It is likely that Dobbs called the play and the formation, protection or even the route concept called was slightly off. Hard to fault him. 48 hours earlier he played for the Cardinals. At the end of the day though, Josh Dobbs is a professional and Pros compete. Hats off to him and the Vikings on their win this Sunday.
