Former Steelers QB Gets Benched

On Sunday, former Steelers quarterback Josh Dobbs was benched for backup quarterback Nick Mullens after struggling against the Las Vegas Raiders. The Vikings decided to make the move after Dobbs turned the ball over five times in the last two games, and failed to put the Vikings on the board until late in the fourth quarter. They would win the game 3-0 after an ugly game. Dobbs threw for just 63 yards before being benched, and the team lost wide receiver Justin Jefferson to a chest injury.

The star of Dobbs rose a month ago after he led the Vikings to a wild win in relief of rookie Jaren Hall after joining the team to a phenomenal comeback win. Dobbs finished that game 20 of 30 for 158 yards and two touchdowns through the air while adding seven carries for 66 yards and a touchdown in relief of Hall. Leading a game-winning drive down the field, Dobbs found Brandon Powell for a six-yard touchdown pass to give them the win.

Before heading to the Vikings, Dobbs started eight games in Arizona. In eight games, Dobbs is 167 for 266, completing 62.8% of his passes for 1,569 yards — a 5.9 yards per attempt average. He has thrown eight touchdowns and five interceptions and has an 81.2 passer rating. He ranked 19th with a QBR of 46.6, just behind Joe Burrow. Yet, he played arguably his best game of the season on Sunday. His credit? Mike Tomlin, the head coach of the Steelers.

“In this league, there’s never an excuse for your circumstance,” Dobbs said. “I learned that from Coach T, usually, people don’t care about your circumstance. They just want to see you succeed, given the circumstance you’re given. I’ve been in similar situations backing up Ben where he goes down, but he gets back up. Your heart drops for a second while you’re warming up. But when they said it was my ball, my job was just to go out there and play good football.”

Still, it seems the goodwill has run out, and Dobbs is now heading to the bench with Mullens looking to spark a charge into the Vikings’ offense moving forward.

Dobbs was the Steelers’ fourth-round pick in the 2017 NFL Draft out of Tennessee and spent most of the next five seasons as the Steelers’ third-string quarterback.

He spent all of 2017 as the third-stringer behind Ben Roethlisberger and Landry Jones, and then backed up Roethlisberger in 2018, playing in five games of relief. He completed six of 12 passes for 43 yards.