Why does Josh Dobbs have no hair?

Robert Joshua Dobbs who is more commonly known as Josh Dobbs is an American football quarterback who currently plays for the Minnesota Vikings in the National Football League (NFL). Dobbs has been in the league since 2017 when the Pittsburgh Steelers selected him in the fourth round of the 2017 NFL Draft. However, luck has not been on his side and he has seen far less amount of playing time till the 2023 NFL season.

Dobbs is 28 years old as of November 2023 and is a 6 foot 3 inch quarterback who was born in the city of Alpharetta in Georgia. He first attended Wesleyan School followed by Alpharetta High School and his interest in the game of football goes back to when he was just five years old. Being rated as a three-star or four-star recruit by websites such as Rivals.com and Scout.com, Dobbs went on to play his college football for the Volunteers football team at the University of Tennessee.

With limited playing time over his first two years, Dobbs became the Volunteers’ starter in his junior year. He had two relatively good seasons compiling 9-4 records in both 2015 and 2016, but his numbers were never off the charts. He ended his junior and senior years with 2,291 and 2,946 passing yards and threw 15 and 27 touchdowns respectively.

How did Josh Dobbs lose his hair?

Dobbs suffers from a condition known as alopecia areata. This condition causes hair loss which starts mostly with hair being lost from some or all areas of the body. Generally, hair is lost in patches on the scalp and these patches can get as big as the size of coins.

Dobbs has suffered from this condition since the age of eight when he was in grade 3, as he disclosed in an interview with Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall who is a senior medical advisor at Pfizer. Once he and his family found out about the condition, they immediately started treatment and his hair started to grow back.

Unfortunately though, by the time he reached high school, the condition had become worse and he lost his eyebrows and eyelashes as well. His hair had become so patchy in college that he eventually decided to shave it all off and since then he has remained bald.

Josh Dobbs NFL Journey

Having suffered such a visible condition from his childhood and especially during his teenage years, Dobbs recollected how difficult it was to go through the process of treatment only to find out that it wasn’t helping.

Despite this huge obstacle in life, the 2017 fourth-round pick ensured that he made it big in life by not only excelling on the football field as a quarterback but even off it by earning a degree in aerospace engineering.

Dobbs started his NFL journey with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2017 but he saw very little playing time on the field until 2023. With Big Ben Roethlisberger running the Steelers' offense, Dobbs had no way of taking the field unless due to an injury. In two years with the Steelers, Dobbs only played in five games and in 2019 he was traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

With the Jaguars, he was again on the bench and did not get a chance to play a single game for the team. In 2020, he again went back to the Steelers for one year and then bounced around the league in 2022 being signed and released by the Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions.

He finally ended up with the Tennessee Titans in December 2022 and played the last two games of the season. These were also his first games as a starter in the NFL. Come 2023, Dobbs has finally seen the most action of his career as he has started 8 games for the Arizona Cardinals going 1-7.

Despite his record, he showed great play and the Minnesota Vikings snatched him up after losing Kirk Cousins for the year due to injury. Dobbs has now played in three games for the Vikings, starting two of them.