Zavier Cobb is exhausted when he arrives home from a Dubai Barracudas game. His fatigue is not a function of playing American football at age 34, or the rigours of the game. It is about the demands of playing quarterback.
“It is by far the hardest position,” the former receiver and running back said. “As a receiver, you play a small part in the overall success of the team. As a quarterback, you have to know what everyone does. You have to remember every play. You have to know what everyone is doing, the running backs, the line, the defence.
“You won’t get hit as much at quarterback, but I’m mentally drained after a game.”
Cobb will put on display all he has learnt in his two seasons leading the Barracudas offence when they meet the Dubai Stallions on Friday night in Desert Bowl III, the championship game of the Emirates American Football League (EAFL).
That he is playing at all is something of a random occurrence. He was signing up his son for a Pee-Wee Division team in the autumn of 2013 when he was asked to try out with the senior team.
“I didn’t know anything about the Barracudas at the time,” he said in a telephone interview.
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Coach Kyle Jordan saw him and asked him if he would like to run some drills with the senior team, “And one thing led to another and I joined the team,” Cobb said.
A bigger surprise was in store. The compact Cobb, who stands 167cm and weighs 69 kilos, had been a receiver or a running back during his football career, going back to Cedar Grove High School in Atlanta, Georgia, and continuing with the Richmond Speed of arena football and a semi-pro team.
After a few weeks Jordan asked Cobb to try his hand at quarterback, a position perhaps even more important in the EAFL than the NFL given the number of players here with no previous experience in the sport.
“We have a few good quarterbacks in the league, but not enough of them,” Jordan said. “If one goes down, that will change things dramatically, in terms of how many of your plays you can run.”
Jordan believed he could make a quarterback of Cobb, and the results have proved him right.
The Barracudas were 1-7 in their first season BC (Before Cobb), then 3-3-1 in the second before posting the league’s best record, 6-2, this season.
“I’m more settled this year,” Cobb said. “I realise this is my position now. It’s getting easier. When I first started playing there, the game seemed to move so fast, but now the game has slowed down.”
He has greater respect now, he said, for NFL quarterbacks.
“I’m amazed by those guys,” he said. “Their playbook is like an encyclopaedia, it’s that big.”
Cobb believes he is one of the fastest players in the league, even after knee surgery, and foot speed comes in handy when the team operates out of a spread-option formation, which calls for the quarterback to decide whether to hand off, pass or keep the ball and run.
Interestingly, the former receiver tends to throw the ball, if he can. “He’s quick and he’s fast,” said Anthony Daniels, coach of the Stallions, “but he doesn’t like to run the ball.”
Cobb says he can be more effective if he keeps his direct runs to a minimum; it generally means less punishment from defenders.
He knows plenty about discipline and exertion. He spent 12 years in the US Marines, part of it as a drill instructor. For five years he served as a member of a unit assigned to the US president, one year with Bill Clinton and four with George W Bush.
He came to Dubai in 2013 to take a job with the UAE military and said he enjoys living in the country. “I’m loving it,” he said. “Dubai and UAE as a whole are culturally diverse, with people from all over the world. I love it.”
He would like his second EAFL season to end with a championship. “Given where this team was in the first season, it would be a great accomplishment,” he said.
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