The Untold Truth Of Joshua Dobbs

Joshua Dobbs has been a professional football player for several years, but his name has been growing in prominence since joining the Minnesota Vikings in the fall of 2023. Drafted into the NFL in 2017, Dobbs had played backup quarterback for several teams until, in the fall of 2023, he was traded from the Arizona Cardinals to Minnesota. During his first game with his new team, fate intervened and led him to take to the field as starting quarterback. 

Fans were blown away by his performance, and a star was born. Despite the sudden surge of interest in the athlete, who played college ball at the University of Tennessee, Dobbs is no overnight sensation. In fact, the more that football fans learn about him, the more they realize how unique Dobbs is, both as a quarterback and in a completely different role that has little to do with throwing a football.

In fact, there's a lot to unpack about this multitalented athlete, and much that football fans may not know about him. To find out more, we're taking a deep dive into the untold truth of Joshua Dobbs.

After spending two seasons with the Steelers, Joshua Dobbs was traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was then traded back to the Steelers, and then, in 2022, to the Cleveland Browns. That same year, he was traded to the Detroit Lions, and later that year went to the Tennessee Titans. In 2023, he was traded back to the Cleveland Browns, then to the Arizona Cardinals, who traded Dobbs to the Minnesota Vikings in October 2023. Add that all up, and Dobbs has played for seven different teams over the course of seven NFL seasons. 

Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell envisioned a bright future for Dobbs in Minnesota. "I think he's a very intelligent guy, which gives us an opportunity to get him in here in a short amount of time and try to prepare him for any snaps when that may occur," O'Connell said, somewhat presciently, in a SiriusXM radio interview, via the Associated Press.

Moving around that much would understandably rattle anyone — but not, apparently, Dobbs. Instead, he chose to treat his experience with each team as a chance to learn, grow, and improve. "Each stop, each opportunity, my role has grown," he told The Washington Post. "I kind of accepted that was going to be my journey. Whatever opportunity was thrown my way, no matter how big or small, I was going to make the most of it."

After leading the Minnesota Vikings to victory over the Atlanta Falcons, Joshua Dobbs' second game as the team's QB was equally impressive. When the Vikings took on the New Orleans Saints, they experienced an even more decisive win, 27-19. In doing so, Dobbs not only racked up two back-to-back wins in his first two games as a Viking, he also set a new NFL record. 

During that first game, he gained 158 offensive yards; in the second, he racked up another 312. As a result, Dobbs became the first player in the history of the NFL to accumulate more than 400 passing yards — along with 100 rushing yards, without any interceptions — in any player's first two games with a team. 

Addressing his back-to-back wins and his record-setting performance, Dobbs was characteristically humble in recognizing that two games, however good they were, do not make up a season. "Whatever happened, you have to put that aside and go on to the next one," he told ABC News. "You show up on Sunday, you don't play well? No one cares what you did last week in Atlanta. They care about what you did this week in Minnesota."

Joshua Dobbs' unique double life as an NFL quarterback and aerospace engineer earned him the nickname "Astro Dobbs." That nickname, in fact, has been around for awhile — long enough that Dobbs even has his own "Astro" merch available for sale, including branded baseball caps, hoodies, and more.

Dobbs has picked up a whole new moniker: "Passtronaut." During an appearance on "The Dave Pasch Podcast," Dobbs noted that this new nickname "has begun to gain some steam," adding, "We need to do something fun around it." The nickname picked up even more traction when Dobbs received congratulations from NASA's Glenn Research Center after his triumphant first game for the Minnesota Vikings. "Congratulations @josh_dobbs1 on yesterday's big win! Looks like you rock(et) on and off the field. We heard you've even got a new nickname, the 'Passtronaut.' If the suit fits, wear it," read the celebratory tweet, which concluded with an emoji of a rocket blasting off.

The adulation he received from NASA shouldn't be surprising, given how well Dobbs fit in while interning there. "NASA is a fan club of Josh Dobbs," Scott Colloredo, Kennedy Space Center engineering director, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "He really got a lot of street cred with our engineers. They became his fans."

Joshua Dobbs holds the rare distinction of being only the second NFL quarterback in the history of the league to start for three different teams within the same calendar year — and the first to hit the field with less than three weeks of prep time with each of those franchises. "This has never happened in the history of the league," Dobbs' agent, Mike McCartney, told The Washington Post. "It's not like you go to the library and say, 'How do I handle this?' He's the one who's writing the book."

Achieving that didn't come without a lot of hard work. Even as a college quarterback, Dobbs was committed to improving both his own abilities and those of his teammates. "It is constant improvement at the QB position," he told Knoxville Focus. "As the quarterback you have to push people to get better every day ... You push guys to compete and to grow on and off the field." 

For all of Joshua Dobbs' incredible achievements, the trait that comes through immediately in interviews is how humble he is. Bragging about his achievements, it seems, is seemingly not in his DNA. "It wasn't something my husband and I attempted to teach him," Dobbs' mother, Stephanie Dobbs, told the New York Post of her son's humble nature. "From our perspective it just seems to be innate in his personality."

One of the highlights of Joshua Dobbs' life that didn't take place in a football stadium occurred in 2021, when he spoke with astronauts stationed aboard the International Space Station. Dobbs — who, at the time, was still playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers — chatted with NASA astronauts Commander Victor Glover and Colonel Michael Hopkins, both of whom had been college football players. Also aboard the ISS was Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who, like Dobbs, is an aeronautical engineer and was also a wide receiver when he played football for the University of Tokyo. 

After introducing themselves, the astronauts brought out a small football but admitted that throwing it in a zero-gravity environment was pretty challenging. Dobbs was clearly awestruck, telling the astronauts, "You guys are living out all of our childhood dreams right now," he said in a YouTube video of the conversation. "So we definitely look up to you guys, and appreciate all of your hard work in setting an example for us, and aspiring us to achieve our dreams each day as well."

As Commander Glover told Dobbs, that was his first time aboard the ISS, and he admitted it had been the experience of a lifetime. "It's already exceeded my expectations," he said of living on the space station. "Every single day has been a learning experience. Looking out the Cupola window at the Earth has been awe inspiring."

Given Joshua Dobbs' desire to blast beyond Earth's atmosphere, does he expect to encounter extraterrestrial life forms if he ever finds himself in outer space? In October 2023, before being traded from the Arizona Cardinals to the Minnesota Vikings, Dobbs was asked during a press conference about Congressional hearings on UFOs and the existence of aliens. Dobbs, however, was unconvinced that humans are not alone in the universe. "I do not believe in UFOs and aliens," Dobbs said in video of that press conference. 

Interestingly, Dobbs was asked pretty much that same question back in 2020 while appearing on "The Jim Rome Show" – and gave a somewhat different answer. "I think I do believe in UFOs, just because, they are what they say, they're unidentified flying objects," he said. "There are so many advances in the aviation world, that are more on the military side than the commercial side, that are kind of, I guess, dark ops are kept secret, that the stuff flying nowadays, the type of technology and our advancements, they're really mind-blowing ... I don't believe there are, like, aliens flying around, but I think there's some interesting stuff flying up in the sky ..." 

In fact, Dobbs considers those UFOs to be representative of the work being done — albeit covertly — in his field of aerospace engineering. "It's kind of a true testament to engineering and the minds that we have on this planet," he added. 

One of Joshua Dobbs' most defining physical characteristics is his bald head. Unlike many athletes who shave their heads for a smooth look, Dobbs' lack of hair isn't due to a style choice, but the result of alopecia. 

Dobbs was first diagnosed with alopecia — a condition that causes hair loss — when he was in the third grade. It's something he's lived with for most of his life, and has learned to take in stride. "Everyone's going through something," he said, as reported by the Arizona Cardinals website. "For us, alopecia may be a little more visually visible to outside people looking in, but everyone's going through something."

Interviewed by NIH MedlinePlus Magazine, Dobbs admitted that his alopecia had sometimes been met with cruel taunts and jibes from opposing players and fans. "That was tough, but it taught me the ultimate form of self-confidence," he explained. "You can look in the mirror and know that the fact that you can't grow hair has no impact on what you contribute to your team, your friends, or your community." Ultimately, he came to realize that his lack of hair offered no hindrance in his quest to achieve the goals that he'd set for himself. "Keep in mind that all of your dreams can be accomplished without your hair," he said. "Alopecia shouldn't stand in your way."