Cardinals QB Josh Dobbs Gives Nerdy Breakdown on Touchdown Run
"I feel like you guys are overthinking this."
Arizona Cardinals quarterback Josh Dobbs sat in the team's interview room in Tempe on Wednesday with five questions in the total 16 minutes he spoke with reporters directed towards his 23-yard rushing touchdown last Sunday, the first of his career.
To be fair, it was pretty sweet:
Earlier in the week, media spoke with offensive coordinator Drew Petzing about the play:
"I think the offensive line did an unbelievable job of creating a very clean running lane and everybody downfield was kind of matching their routes, so it kind of left him clean in the middle of field to make that decision. Certainly when he got to about the 10 or 8-yard line I was like, 'Is he going to slide? What's he going to do?' I think it became very evident that he was not going to and I was really excited for him, to see him get in the endzone and finish that play off."
Head coach Jonathan Gannon also chimed in.
“You saw the sideline. He’s a competitor. The guys know that about him. I thought that was an excellent play. He used his legs on that one. They covered the route pretty good and an explosive run for a touchdown, especially the way that he finished it, that was a primetime play," he said.
Today, Dobbs shared what he saw.
"I knew they were in man coverage, we had a man/zone tell just in our formation alignment. I knew they were in man coverage so when I broke the pocket I knew there was no one accounting for the quarterback, just had to outrun the mike [linebacker], so you have to get a full steam ahead," said Dobbs.
"When you get inside the five-yard line, it's hard to turn away from getting in the endzone. So I did it. Some guys go low. Some guys they stay high. You have to try to slow down for a second to figure out what the defender's gonna do, then that's going to make my decision on how I'm going to get into the endzone. Once you stay high, you got to initiate it. It's like simple physics, right? A body in motion stays in motion. You got to apply more force than the opposite force coming at you. So we're able to do that and get in the endzone."
Arizona Cardinals quarterback Josh Dobbs helped extend the team's lead to 14-0 with a 23-yard touchdown run that got everybody fired up, including his own teammates.
Dobbs scrambled previously and slid before a defender could make contact on him. He wasn't sure if it was the same player he went through to get into the end zone, but the Cardinals previously spoke about finishing drives in the red zone, and he wasn't about to disappoint his teammates.
"At the end of the day, you get the ball that close to the endzone - the previous week we came in here and we talked about when we get in the red zone, we need to score touchdowns. And so when it's one-on-one on the goal line as a quarterback it's like, 'Alright, let's get this ball in the endzone now and not have to worry about doing it on the next play.'"
Dobbs finished the game 21-31 passing for 228 yards and one touchdown. Though the Cardinals blew a 28-7 lead in the third quarter, Arizona's offense looked night and day better than their Week 1 opener.
Dobbs is set to start his third consecutive game in the NFL, which would be a first in his career. After being acquired at the very end of preseason action, Dobbs had roughly six on-field practices to get caught up before the regular season was underway.
He says it's been awesome to see the team rally around him in their short time together:
"It's really good getting to know my teammates and seeing us rally together. Obviously at the end of the day we're here to win football games and that's what we're striving to do each and every week. And part of that is building that team chemistry. And so we will continue to do that as quickly as we can, as rapidly as we can because we have a good slate of opponents starting with the Cowboys this weekend," said Dobbs.
"The more we can gel together, come together, continue to work and grow together as a team, it's only going to help us on Sundays."
