Tennessee football: Steelers trade former Vols QB Josh Dobbs to Jaguars

A Tennessee football letterman is moving in the NFL. The Pittsburgh Steelers traded former Volunteers quarterback Joshua Dobbs to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The quarterback for the last Tennessee football team to finish with a winning record is on the move in the pros. Joshua Dobbs, who just began his third year with the Pittsburgh Steelers, has been traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

ESPN Senior NFL Insider Adam Schefter reports that Jacksonville gave up a 2020 fifth-round NFL Draft pick to get Dobbs. The trade comes a day after Jaguars quarterback Nick Foles was placed on the injured reserve.

Washington State Cougars graduate Gardner Minshew, who is a rookie, came in after Foles got hurt and actually looked pretty good, going 22-of-25 for 275 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. The Jags did lose to the Kansas City Chiefs, but there’s no shame in that.

Although Dobbs is likely to back up Minshew at this point, Tennessee football fans will at least have another former quarterback to cheer for. And maybe he can cheer them up given what has happened to their college team.

If Minshew can’t keep up what he did this past weekend, Dobbs has a great chance to become a starter down the line in Jacksonville. He’s obviously very athletic, and Doug Marrone has a brilliant enough offensive mind to be able to utilize his skills. Hey, he did make Blake Bortles look good.

For his career, Dobbs played in five games with the Steelers, completing only six-of-12 passes for 43 yards and an interception. He also has four carries for 11 yards. The most he ever played was against the Oakland Raiders last year, and he did struggle, going four-of-nine for only 24 yards and an interception while carrying the ball twice for 15 yards.

However, there is reason to believe that he has potential. He made dramatic improvement over time with Tennessee football, and the offensive coordinator change that brought in Mike DeBord in 2015 helped him tremendously.

Going to Jacksonville pairs him up with another offensive mind, and a franchise that needs help may have found it. Again, Minshew is the favorite to start after what he did on Sunday, even in a 40-26 loss. But don’t count out Dobbs’s potential to play.