Arizona's Jonathan Gannon told Josh Dobbs he was starting, wouldn't be traded
If Josh Dobbs has trust issues with Arizona Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon, no one will blame him after what he revealed on his podcast with Chiefs tackle Trey Smith this week.
"Life's been nuts," Dobbs said when describing the wild 48 hours he had Sunday-Tuesday ahead of his trade from Arizona to Minnesota. In that period, Dobbs says Gannon first told him he would be starting in Week 10 and later told Dobbs that he wasn't going to be traded. Neither comment from the coach turned out to be true.
"So I'm in Arizona last Sunday. We play Baltimore. Game ends, we lose by seven, 31-24. We're in the locker room. JG (Gannon) gets off his podium – he does media before I do – and he says I'm starting for the Cardinals in Cleveland the next week."
Dobbs went home that night and had dinner with his family. He was comfortable, having "finally got settled" with his furniture and dog, Jet, joining him in Arizona earlier that week. They had been apart since Dobbs was traded from Cleveland to Arizona in late August.
The situation began to rapidly change the next day.
Nov 5, 2023; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Minnesota Vikings quarterback Joshua Dobbs (15) after a victory against the Atlanta Falcons at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
"I go to the facility on Monday and JG, the head coach in Arizona, calls me into his office and he says, 'Hey, we're going to start Clayton Tune in Cleveland.' And this is leading up to [Kyler Murray's] return. I'm not sure when he comes back, but I think he comes back soon so they want to see what the rookie can do. So I'm like, OK, I understood. I was upset with it but I understood just the situation the franchise was in at that moment," Dobbs explained.
"So I went home, I talked to my agent, just told him about the situation. Went to sleep, woke up Tuesday morning with a text from my agent saying, 'Hey, you could be traded today,'" he continued. "And listen to this, when I had my meeting with JG in Arizona, he looked at me in the face and 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 alright the trade deadline's in four hours, you could be traded. You could go to Minnesota or go back to Cleveland. I was like, today's about to be nuts."
Dobbs said he woke up around 9 a.m. on Halloween morning and two hours later he got a call from his agent saying he was being traded to the Vikings.
"So then all the emotions of the last 36 hours, whatever was told to you something different has happened. Like, you were told you were starting in Cleveland the next week against your previous team and then the next day you were told you're not starting but you're not getting traded and then the next day you wake up you're being told that oh you are being traded and you're being traded to Minnesota," Dobbs said.
Then came the insane schedule once he arrived in Minnesota, where he spent the first half of last Wednesday going through medical evaluations with the Vikings before jumping into meetings and beginning to digest the play book and everything he needed to know in order to play the hero role off the bench in the Vikings' thrilling win over the Atlanta Falcons.
