In case you weren’t paying attention, Kenny Pickett wasn’t the only quarterback drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers to win a big game yesterday. Joshua Dobbs, a 2017 fourth-round draft pick, scored his first career victory as a starter, in doing so providing the Dallas Cowboys with their largest upset loss in nearly two decades.
Now a member of the Arizona Cardinals, Dobbs’ team was an 11-point underdog at kickoff, marking Dallas’ worst defeat since losing to the Detroit Lions in 2006 after being favored by 13.5 points.
“It’s been a long time to get to right here, but I’m just proud of the team, the way we fight, the way we finish in the fourth quarter”, he said after the win. “I think this is a great moment for us, knowing how to finish”.
Just a little over a month ago, Dobbs was a member of the Cleveland Browns. The Cardinals traded for him with starter Kyler Murray sidelined due to injury, and he has started the first three games of the season. The Cardinals lost the first two weeks but claimed victory number one yesterday.
For his part, he completed 17-of-21 pass attempts for 189 yards with one touchdown pass and a 120 passer rating. He also rushed for 55 yards on six attempts, leading Arizona to a 12-point win over the Cowboys by a score of 28-16. Former Steelers RB James Conner rushed for 98 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries, plus two receptions for 18 yards. Most of Dobbs’ rushing yardage came on this attempt below, which one commenter described as a dog wearing socks, which I unfortunately can’t unsee now.
Many thought that Dobbs’ days might be numbered the moment Pittsburgh drafted Mason Rudolph in the third round in 2018, the year after taking Dobbs. Landry Jones was already the backup to Ben Roethlisberger at the time, and the thought was that those two along with the rookie Rudolph would constitute their quarterback room.
But Dobbs not only made the team, he won the backup role, though he hardly had to play. Rudolph leapfrogged him a year later, and then he was traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars for a fifth-round pick, but he found his way back before spending the 2021 season on the Reserve/Injured List.
Spending time with the Browns, he finally landed with the Tennessee Titans toward the end of the 2022 season, thrust into the starting lineup on the fly. He lost both of those starts, as well as his first two starts this year, and so is only 1-4, but he has looked more and more comfortable.
Now 28 years old, it’s been a long time in the waiting for him to get this opportunity. Murray remains on the Physically Unable to Perform List, and the Cardinals have not committed to immediately activating and playing him as soon as possible.
“We’ll get him going when he is physically and mentally ready to play and knowing that it’s gonna take him some time and some weeks of practice to get comfortable with what he’s doing”, Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon said of his presumed franchise quarterback. “I’m not in a hurry with that”.
So far this season, Dobbs is 59-of-82 passing for 549 yards with two touchdown passes and zero interceptions, though he has fumbled three times. He has 93 rushing yards and one score.
