According to Adam Schefter, the Arizona Cardinals are trading former Cleveland Browns quarterback Josh Dobbs and a conditional seventh-round pick to the Minnesota Vikings in exchange for a sixth-round pick.
Josh Dobbs has had a whirlwind year. In the offseason, the Browns were the only team that gave him a realistic salary.
The Cardinals traded a 2024 fifth-round pick for him at the end of August to manage their offense until Kyler Murray returned. On Monday the Cardinals told reporters that Murray or rookie Clayton Tune will start against the Browns. Now he’s on his way to Minnesota to help stabilize their offense.
Kirk Cousins sustained an Achilles tear this weekend and the Vikings have to find a replacement. The Vikings have had a difficult season, starting 0-3 before turning things around and finishing 4-4. The Vikings needed a quarterback to help stabilize their offense, and Dobbs knows Vikings General Manager Kwesi Adofa-Mensah from their time together in Cleveland.
Dobbs was having an unproductive year in Arizona, as he’s ranked near the bottom of the league in most metrics. I think he’ll thrive in Minnesota where he is surrounded by talented players. While some may question the trade, I think it’s a good deal for both teams. Hopefully, it can be a model for any future Browns’ trades today.
Dealing for a kicker Dustin Hopkins has proven to be a savvy and fruitful acquisition for the Cleveland Browns.
They gave up a 2025 seventh-round selection pick to the Los Angeles Chargers in exchange for Hopkins, allowing them to let go of a struggling Cade York.
Hopkins has been reliable in seven games this season, connecting on 18-of-20 field goals for a 90% success rate. The eye-popping stat: he’s 7-of-7 on kicks of 50 yards or more. It’s a distinction that has landed him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame down the road in Canton.
Against the Indianapolis Colts, he became the first kicker in NFL history to hit field goals of 50 yards in five consecutive games in a single season. The jersey he wore in that game is currently on display:
Frank Howard, the hulking slugger best known for his time with the Washington Senators and Los Angeles Dodgers, died on Monday at his Virginia home at the age of 87. Though he never played for a major league team in Wisconsin, he spent more than three decades in the Green Bay area and had two coaching stints with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Howard, who at 6-foot-7 was a giant in his era, made four all-star teams and hit 382 home runs (many of considerable distance) during his 16 years of playing. He was the 1960 Rookie of the Year, twice led the league in homers and won a championship with the Dodgers in 1963, though his career might have ended there were it not for the vice president of a cardboard box manufacturer in Green Bay — more on that in a minute.
Howard pre-dated the arrival of George Bamberger in the Brewers organization but served during both of Bamberger’s stints as Brewers manager, and Howard took over as manager of the New York Mets for 116 games in 1983 when Bamberger stepped aside from that job, as well.
Howard was a multisport wonder at Ohio State University who was drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors to play hoops rather than baseball in 1958. He elected to sign with the newly relocated Dodgers instead, and he was assigned to the Green Bay Bluejays of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League, where he blasted 37 home runs in his first season of organized ball and concluded the year with a brief cameo with the parent team in Los Angeles.
While in Green Bay, Howard met his first wife, Carol, an employee of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, and wound up buying a house. He lived in Green Bay during the offseasons until the late 1980s when he relocated to Virginia. He raised six children in Green Bay, and his MLB exploits were followed regularly in the Green Bay Press-Gazette. He even owned shopping centers in the area.
After the 1963 season, when Howard was considering walking away from the baseball, he was convinced to give it another shot by George Mackin, the vice president of the Green Bay Packaging Company, where Howard was a sales trainee.
Two years later, Howard was traded to Washington and became one of the city’s most beloved athletes. He finished playing in 1973, and the Brewers hired Howard to manage their Class AAA farm affiliate in Spokane, Washington, in 1976.
Howard was just 39 years old at the time and had nicknames like “Hondo” (after a John Wayne character), “Gentle Giant,” “The Monster,” and anything else that brought attention to his gigantic stature. He was dressed in a size 54 shirt, 46 pants, and 14D shoes. More than two decades after leaving the Brewers, clubhouse manager Tony Migliaccio stated Howard’s measurements were the only uniform criteria he’d seen that matched what Brewers newcomer CC Sabathia needed in 2008.
Milwaukee Journal sports writer Mike Gonring wrote during the 1976 spring training, “If Sir Edmund Hillery had seen Howard, he probably would have stuck a piton in him and tried to climb.”
“The first day, he was yelling instructions at us and the stadium was shaking,” Gonring quoted one player as saying.
In 1977, Howard was promoted to the Major-League first base coach on manager Alex Grammas’ staff. He worked primarily with outfielders and was given a chance to mentor players such as Sixto Lezcano, Robin Yount and Charlie Moore, then later Paul Molitor and Gorman Thomas. His fiercely struck ground balls to Yount during workouts, “blister balls,” became the stuff of legend.
“You’ve got to keep doing things until they are second nature,” Howard told the audience. “You must adapt.” You must do your homework. You don’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar to play this game, but you should be intelligent and eager to learn. That 110% crap you hear about is a bunch of nonsense. Nobody does it. Give me a guy who consistently performs to the best of his abilities… That’s what Charlie and Robin are discovering and have discovered.”
He was still under contract and retained in 1977 when Grammas was fired and Bamberger was brought on board, a step that led the Brewers to an immediate turnaround and a 93-win season in 1978. Howard was popular enough that players and fans advocated for Howard to become the new manager; even ousted general manager Jim Baumer said he’d be the right choice. But Harry Dalton was hired as new GM after the 1977 season and didn’t see Howard as a candidate.
Howard departed the Brewers in 1980 to become manager of the San Diego Padres, but he was sacked after only one strike-shortened season. He joined Bamberger’s staff with the Mets in 1982, then served as acting manager in 1983 before following Bamberger to Milwaukee in 1984 as hitting coach. He continued for two seasons but was sacked after 1986, and subsequently became the first-base coach for the Seattle Mariners.
Prior to the 1986 season, Howard’s locker occurred to be next to a gas heater that exploded in the new Brewers clubhouse during spring training, injuring numerous Brewers personnel but not killing anyone. This featured coach Tony Muser, who required emergency medical attention for burns and had to miss the 1986 season. Howard, who had been worried about being lost in the wreckage, had gone out to the field for early labor and had returned unharmed.
Leave a Reply