The Arizona Cardinals are trading former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Josh Dobbs to the Minnesota Vikings, according to a report by Tom Pelissero of NFL Network.
Dobbs has been the starting quarterback for the Cardinals all season after joining that team in a training camp trade from the Cleveland Browns.
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 ranks 19th with a QBR of 46.6, just behind Joe Burrow.
He will likely take over as the starting quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings, who lost Kirk Cousins for the season to a torn Achilles tendon in Week 7. Fifth-round rookie Jaren Hall is the only other quarterback on the Vikings’ active roster.
The Vikings and Cardinals swapped draft picks in the exchange, with the Cardinals moving from the seventh round to the sixth round, per Josina Anderson of CBS Sports.
The Cardinals are expected to start rookie Clayton Tune until Kyler Murray is ready to return from his injury. The Steelers will host the Cardinals on Dec. 3. Murray is expected to be back much sooner than that.
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.
In 2019, the Steelers traded Dobbs to the Jacksonville Jaguars, as he had fallen behind Mason Rudolph on the depth chart. Dobbs spent that season in Jacksonville as the Steelers struggled with Rudolph and Devlin Hodges at quarterback.
In 2020, the Steelers re-signed Dobbs, and he spent the last two years again as the third-string quarterback in Pittsburgh behind Roethlisberger and Rudolph. He played in one game in 2020, the season finale in Cleveland, completing 4 of 5 passes for 2 yards. Dobbs would re-sign with the Steelers on a one-year contract following that season. Dobbs suffered a turf toe injury before the 2021 season, landing him on injured reserve.