Dobbs back with Steelers, filling QB room

Add another quarterback to the Steelers' depth chart for their 2021 training camp.

Josh Dobbs' agent, Mike McCartney announced that the Steelers' 2017 fourth round pick had agreed to return to the Steelers on a one-year deal on Wednesday:

Dobbs never started for the Steelers in a regular season game, but did complete his first NFL pass in 2018 on a third down conversion for a 22-yard completion to JuJu Smith-Schuster that helped keep the Steelers alive in a 23-16 win over the Ravens. He would make another brief appearance to replace an injured Ben Roethlisberger against the Raiders that season, where Dobbs completed just 4 of 9 passes for 24 yards and an interception in the team's 24-21 loss.

After the Steelers drafted Mason Rudolph in 2019, Dobbs lost the preseason quarterback battle to the rookie and would be traded to the Jaguars for a fifth round pick. He never threw an NFL pass for the Jaguars before being waived in Sep. 2020. The Steelers claimed Dobbs off waivers shortly after, keeping him on a one-year deal until the end of the season.

Dobbs rejoins a quarterback room headed by Roethlisberger, with Rudolph as the established backup and 2019 first round pick Dwayne Haskins looking to restart his career after being released by the Washington Football Team in 2020. If nothing else, Dobbs brings another NFL arm to training camp who will be familiar with what the Steelers ask from their quarterbacks and has shown to stay out of the kind of trouble that got Haskins released from his former team. 

It doesn't change anything about the Steelers' needing to find Roethlisberger's heir at quarterback, but the added depth to the quarterback room at a presumably cheap price would offer some emergency insurance should the Steelers have to endure losing two quarterbacks to injury like they did when Roethlisberger and Rudolph were injured in 2019, leading to the team needed undrafted rookie quarterback Devlin Hodges to start six games.