Tennessee Vols: Is The Sudden Hype Around Josh Dobbs Fair?

Former Tennessee Vols quarterback Josh Dobbs is receiving all kinds of pre-draft hype.

Everyone wants to be the guy that saw it coming when it comes to sports.

That’s why, inevitably, young players are always compared to player that have found great success.

Sometimes the comparisons are fair. Most of the time, however, they’re far fetched and damaging to the younger player.

Former Tennessee Vols quarterback Josh Dobbs is currently finding himself in that exact situation.

At the end of the 2016 season, Dobbs was a fairly under the radar player as far as draft prospects are concerned. Most draft analysts had Dobbs going in sixth or seventh round of the draft.

But now, after a strong pro day performance, Dobbs is projected to go as high as the second round.

And along with that draft projection comes the comparison to Dak Prescott.

Is that really fair to Dobbs?

It almost seems like he’s being set up for complete failure.

Success stories like Prescott’s are an extremely rare thing. The hardest thing for NFL teams to do is to land a franchise quarterback in the draft.

Teams strike out more times than they’re successful.

Prescott wasn’t suppose to be what he is — a starting quarterback that led his team to the playoffs.

The former Mississippi State quarterback fell into a perfect situation. Dallas was already a playoff caliber team, with an excellent offensive line.

Prescott became the team’s starter out of necessity (due to Tony Romo’s injury).

It’s incredibly unlikely that Prescott’s situation will be replicated in 2017.

Which exactly why it’s not fair to label Dobbs as the draft’s biggest steal, or the next Prescott.

If Prescott had ended up being drafted by the Seattle Seahawks, he would’ve never had the opportunity to succeed. He’d still likely be a relatively unknown backup in the league.

Had Prescott been drafted by the Cleveland Browns or the New York Jets, then he wouldn’t have had the benefit of a tremendous offensive line or skill players like Dez Bryant and Ezekiel Elliot.

Chances are that Josh Dobbs will be drafted by a team that doesn’t need him to be a starting quarterback. They might not even need him to be the primary backup.

That would actually be good for Dobbs. He needs some time to develop in the NFL (it’s really good for all quarterbacks to sit), before he gets his opportunity.

Because of the lofty expectations, however, that have already been placed on Dobbs, some folks will consider him a failure if he doesn’t lead a team to the playoffs in 2017.

And that’s a shame, because Dobbs deserves the chance to fly under the radar like Prescott did.

Next: Tennessee Vols Freshman That Could Have A Big Season In 2017

After all, everyone wants to be the one to say they saw it coming, but nearly all of us agree that the story is much better when a player comes out of nowhere to be great.