BALTIMORE -- When Josh Dobbs entered the Steelers' 23-16 win over the Ravens with 12:39 remaining Sunday, everyone inside M&T Bank Stadium had to have assumed the backup quarterback was there to hand the ball off to James Conner.
Why not?
After all, the Steelers were backed up on their 5 and facing a second-and-20 after Alejandro Villanueva was penalized for holding on a Ben Roethlisberger scramble that resulted in getting his wind knocked out of him on a full-body tackle from behind by Za'Darius Smith.
Even his teammates were thinking it would be a running play.
"Sure, I’m definitely thinking run, too," safety Sean Davis admitted.
Instead, Dobbs did this:
It was a gutsy call, to be sure. And by all accounts, it was made by Dobbs himself, checking out a running play and working down to the next option on offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner's list.
As soon as Dobbs completed the pass to JuJu Smith-Schuster -- 22 yards for a first down -- Fichtner erupted on the sideline.
"Find a completion. Don’t take a sack in your own end zone," Dobbs said of his mindset on the play. "Find a completion, find an open guy and hit him."
And what did his teammates in the huddle have to offer?
Not bad for your first NFL pass, even though it was tipped at the line of scrimmage and wobbled out there.
"It was a good job by JuJu bringing that in," Roethlisberger said.
But the Steelers had a lot of confidence Dobbs would complete the pass, especially with the Ravens loaded up to stop Conner.
"Josh is uniquely mature as an individual, not just as a football player," Mike Tomlin said. "He’s steady Eddie. That's a personality trait of his. We have a great deal of confidence in him. You know, that guy was challenged in a big way, to earn the job he has, the role that he has for us. He has never blinked at any point in the process, even when it was seemingly stacked against him. Because of that, we have a great deal of confidence in him. And it was displayed. He confirmed it with his play.”
“That was awesome," Roethlisberger said. "It’s very hard for anyone to come into a game off the bench when facing a second-and-20 at the 5. But I'm not surprised. Josh prepares every day, every week like he's the starter. That's what you ask from a backup, a guy who can go in there at any time, in a moment's notice and make a play, not just come in and hand the ball off. We expect him to make that big play, and that was a huge play he made."
"I loved it," tight end Jesse James told me. "I loved that Randy didn’t change the way he was going to coach with Josh in there. It was a huge play for us. Josh made a big play for us."
And a killer for the Ravens, who trailed 20-13 at the time and were starting to get the crowd back into the game.
"We had it covered perfectly," said inside linebacker C..J. Mosley. "(Eric Weddle) was right there and just had his back turned. (Dobbs) had one play made, probably the best pass of his career so far in the NFL."
Of that, there is no doubt. It also was important. It not only got the Steelers off their own goal line in a one-score game, it set them up to go down and kick a field goal that would extend their lead to 10.
"It was a 20-yard chunk," Davis said. "That’s a heartbreaker. That hurts."
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY