Joshua Dobbs, who was on the Detroit Lions practice squad Dec. 21, will now start for the Titans Saturday night with the AFC South title on the line.

-- Photo By Wade Payne | Ap

Josh Dobbs had waited six years for a chance to show what he could do as an NFL starting quarterback. And the turn of events that it took to make that happen on very short notice made his performance all the more remarkable.

While Dobbs’ play in that first start probably won’t be regarded as the second coming of Tom Brady, it was more than enough to offer the desperate Tennessee Titans a glimmer of hope as they try to salvage a playoff berth from the 2022 season with one last shot in Jacksonville this weekend.

University of Tennessee fans are familiar with Dobbs, of course, from his time as the Vols quarterback. He then was a fourth-round pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2017 and has bounced around the rosters and practice squads of four teams – throwing all of 17 career passes – before the Titans found him Dec. 21 on the Detroit Lions’ practice squad.

When quarterback Ryan Tannehill was lost for the season after reinjuring his ankle, Coach Mike Vrabel, acting general manager Ryan Cowden and the staff began to sort through available options. In a best-case scenario, they would need someone to back up and complement rookie Malik Willis. In a worst-case situation, they would need someone who could come in on the fly and operate the offense for a team clinging to playoff life despite not winning since mid-November.

As has been the norm for the Titans this year, it was the worst-case scenario that came into play.

Understand that, especially at the quarterback position, teams like to know as much as possible what they are getting. Everything from timing with receivers to operating the huddle and making checks at the line of scrimmage are all trust and knowledge issues a coach has to have with his quarterback. Familiarity breeds trust.

The usual route of adding a player in-season is to work out a handful of guys, see who passes the eye test and can get a grasp of the system and sign that player. When a player is added without a workout, a coach, scout or general manager usually has had a prior relationship with that player.

That’s what happened when former Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith plucked Logan Woodside away from the Titans practice squad to be his backup in Atlanta. He had worked with him for two years in Tennessee.

For Dobbs, though, the Titans signed him sight unseen. Their only knowledge of him was from preseason game film watching Dobbs play for the Cleveland Browns. Vrabel explained how that unusual decision went down.

“Ryan’s unavailable at that point in time and now going forward, what is the vision that you have for the position? How you think you can have somebody come in here to learn and work with. We went through a bunch of names,” Vrabel says. “We went through a bunch of conversations. That is who we ended up with, and we are excited that he is here. I thought he took advantage of his opportunity. We will see where that leads.”

The more unusual part of that is that no one on the Titans coaching staff or in the team’s front office had had any previous relationship with Dobbs. It was basically the equivalent of buying their quarterback online and seeing if he fit once he arrived at their door.

“I don’t think anybody (here) coached him, per se,” Vrabel says. “The evaluations that we have had from him in the past with what he has done and his ability to … he has some veteran presence, not a whole lot of game experience but certainly has been around, been in this league and is prepared.

“That was something that was evident from an early point in time when he got here.”

Dobbs, who has an engineering degree, has always been seen as intelligent. After all, understanding how a rocket is launched is a bit more complex than understanding how to beat a cover-two zone.

So in the process of trying to stay afloat at the quarterback position, the Titans were prepared to find out how smart Dobbs was.

After Willis’ miserable showing in a Christmas Eve loss to the lowly Houston Texans, the Titans were prepared to turn the reins over to Dobbs, who had been on the roster for three days. The dust had not yet settled on that loss when Dobbs received a phone call from quarterbacks coach Pat O’Hara while driving home for Christmas.

“It was Christmas Eve, and I was actually driving home, and Pat called and said, ‘Hey, can you come in tomorrow? Just to be prepared to play. We just want to go through the game plan. I was trying to figure out which way we’re going to go, but if you’re playing, I just want you to see this stuff as soon as possible,’” Dobbs says. “So, I go home and spend Christmas morning at home, and then turned around, around noon, and drove back up. I had a car finally, so drove back up, and then we started diving into the game plan. And then the next day, they said they, ‘We’re probably going to start you, so you’re going to take all the reps throughout practice.’”

For Dobbs, who had waited for so long as a backup elsewhere just to have this opportunity, to have it come spur of the moment with so little time to prepare (basically four days for a Thursday game) could have been disastrous. But Dobbs says he made sure to do as much as possible to ensure that wouldn’t happen.

“I give everyone the analogy. You have an algebra test every Friday. You have to prepare for the test. You prepare, you do all the homework Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. You go through the process, do the actual work. You go to after hours and everything,” Dobbs says. “And then Friday comes, and then you just don’t take the test. Then you repeat the process, and you never know when you have to take the test.

“I prepare every single week as if I were going to start whether I’m dressing, not dressing, starting, not starting,” he continues.

The test finally came for Dobbs, and while the depleted Titans roster could not do enough to win against the Cowboys, the journeyman QB made a passing grade, enough so that he will get another, bigger and more important exam this week with the Titans’ playoff hopes in his hands.

“We control our own destiny,” Dobbs says. “Every single person in the locker room understands that. We go out, play a good game, we play how we know how to play football.

“We don’t hurt ourselves. We go play good, clean football in Jacksonville next Sunday, whenever the game is, and we come up with a win. Then we’re in the playoffs and we’re getting rolling from there. We control our own destiny.”

For as long as his wait had been and for the unusual way it happened, destiny has somehow given Josh Dobbs the opportunity of a lifetime.

Terry McCormick covers the Titans for TitanInsider.com, a part of Main Street Media.