Eye on the Opponent: Cardinals Sticking with Josh Dobbs at Quarterback vs. Giants

The Arizona Cardinals, who host the New York Giants in Week 2, will stick with quarterback Josh Dobbs.

Dobbs, acquired by the team in the preseason from Cleveland after playing with the Titans in 2022, will make his home debut as a Cardinal after earning his first start in Week 1’s 20-16 road loss to the Washington Commanders.

In that contest, Dobbs completed 21 of his 30 passes for 132 yards (4.4 average) and finished with a passer rating of 78.8. He tried to influence the rushing attack in what was a surprisingly close affair but failed to hold positive yardage and went three carries for -3 yards, which placed second to last on the team’s leaderboard. He also fumbled twice in the game, with one turnover leading to a Washington score.

Despite this mediocre showing, the Cardinals coaching staff believes their quarterback will have a better chance to succeed on Sunday with one start underneath his belt in the offensive system.

"I'm excited about seeing what he does this week," head coach Jonathan Gannon said at his Monday press conference.

A former fourth-round pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2017, Dobbs was an established face on the sidelines to start his career. He played in just six games and completed ten passes for 45 yards in 2018 and 2020 combined. Last fall, he finally earned his shot at relevant snaps with the Titans, appearing in two games late in the year and completing 40 passes for 411 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions as the Titans fell just short of sneaking into the postseason.

That was a much more talented Titans offense than the one he has in front of him in Arizona. Still, the 28-year-old is hopeful the team will show a jump in their cohesion as they take the field in Scottsdale to face a Giants team seemingly desperate to run away with a must-win game early in the season.

"I think a huge jump is in store. Just getting out there, getting the flow of the game right. Getting the flow with the guys--timing, rhythm--and the game's always different than practice sometimes," Dobbs said.

The Dobbs experiment in Arizona has opened itself up at the start of the 2023 season in light of the uncertain situation with quarterback Kyler Murray. The Cardinals’ 2019 first-round pick was kept on the PUP list at the end of the preseason as he continues to recover from a torn ACL/meniscus suffered in Week 14 last season. He has no definitive timetable for a return and will at least miss the team’s first four contests due to being on the PUP list.

Murray told a sideline reporter before the Cardinals’ loss to Washington that he is “coming along” in his recovery but is not yet certain when he will be ready to suit up for his fifth professional season. Along with his absence, the team cut journeyman Colt McCoy at the end of the preseason. They have rookie Clayton Tune backing up Dobbs in Week 2.

Pivoting over to the offense, it's certainly fair to say that the Cardinals were far from being a world-beater in 2022, but now they have some shoes to fill from offseason losses if they want to have any competency on Sunday and the rest of the 2023 season.

Last year, the Cardinals held a modest offensive operation that steered them to a poor 4-13 record. According to Pro Football Reference, the Cardinals ranked 21st and 22nd in overall points and yards tallied, respectively. Their biggest strength was the passing game, flanked by receivers such as Deandre Hopkins and Marquise Brown, which boasted the fourth-most attempts and 18th-best yardage in the entire NFL.

As the 2023 campaign began, Arizona returned without some of the faces that stimulated its offensive attack the year prior. The organization released the team’s leading receiver in 2022 in Hopkins and signed with the Titans in the summer. Numerous other names in the backfield and perimeter also left, like Eno Benjamin, A.J. Green, and Robbie Chosen, cutting pieces out of the nearly 6,000 yards of production that the Cardinals allotted last season.

The names that will lead the Arizona attack are running back James Connor, receivers Rondale Moore and Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, and tight ends Zach Ertz and Trey McBride. In a season opener where the Cardinals managed just 228 yards of total offense, all these players struggled to make an impact on their unit at large. Still, they will continue to be called upon on Sunday to do damage with their differing intangibles.

Brown, a fifth-year receiver out of Oklahoma, became a familiar face in his time with the Baltimore Ravens, where for three seasons, he was the speedy, deep threat for Lamar Jackson and a common target near the endzone.

From 2019 to 2021, Brown elevated his production each year to surpass 1,000 yards receiving by the time he left for Arizona and tallied 21 touchdowns. Expect the Cardinals to send him all over the place and earn big yardage completions, as in his first season with the team, he finished with an average of 10.6 yards per catch and a long ball of 47 yards.

Whereas McBride serves as more of the team’s blocking tight end, Ertz is the familiar pass-catching player who finished fifth in the Cardinals leaderboard in 2022 with 47 receptions for 406 yards and four touchdowns.

In his previous tenure with the Philadelphia Eagles, Ertz terrorized the Giants' defense up the middle of the field and in different parts of the endzone. He earned 708 yards (11.5 average) and seven touchdowns in 13 games against and can be deployed in-line, in the slot, or out wide.

Connor, a former Steeler, is returning for his third season with the Cardinals, in which he will be the feature ball carrier in the backfield once again. He earned almost 800 yards and 22 touchdowns on the ground in both 2021 and 2022 and added 675 yards and four scores through the air.

He’ll be flanked by a supporting cast of Keaontay Benjamin, Corey Clement, and Marlon Mack, but expect him to be the lead workhorse making up for the extra running production caused by Murray’s absence.

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