Is Josh Dobbs a sustainably usable quarterback in fantasy football?

Perhaps the greatest sign the Arizona Cardinals were....not making their best effort to win games this season came when they acquired quarterback Josh Dobbs from the Cleveland Browns in late-August and made him their starter with Kyler Murray out.. With two career starts on his resume, Dobbs was as much an unknown quantity as he was unproven, well-traveled and not all that interesting.

Over the last three weeks, Dobbs has been QB6 in fantasy (21.9 fantasy points per game) as he has accounted for multiple touchdowns twice in that span. He has a total of 144 rushing yards and a touchdown on the ground over that recent stretch (18 rush attempts over the last two games), with zero interceptions on the season.

Somehow, Dobbs is also supporting three fantasy-relevant pass catchers right now in Marquise Brown, Zach Ertz and Michael Wilson. There will be games, like Week 4 against San Francisco (41 pass attempts) where he'll have to throw the ball a lot.

Via Pro Football Focus, here are some interesting numbers for Dobbs.

"Among 36 NFL quarterbacks with at least 25 dropbacks, Dobbs’ 43.9% past-the-sticks throwing rate and 2.58-second average time to throw both rank top ten and his 75.8% adjusted completion rate ranks No. 16. "

"Among 17 NFL quarterbacks with at least 10 rushing attempts in Weeks 2-4, Dobbs’ 90.3 PFF rushing grade ranks No. 2 and his 6.9 rushing yards per attempt rank No. 4."

So Dobbs is playing aggressively (see past-the-sticks throwing rate), he has time to throw and he's running efficiently.

Can Cardinals quarterback Josh Dobbs sustain fantasy relevance?

In Week 5, Dobbs has what would have looked like a tough matchup a month ago against the Cincinnati Bengals. But the Bengals are only middle of the pack in fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks through four weeks (14th-most; Yahoo! scoring).

Dobbs has some streaming appeal against the Bengals this week, in a game that has the look of a sneaky shootout.

The fly in Dobbs' ointment is the possible return of Murray. He can now come off IR at any point, but it does not appear he's close to practicing, let alone playing. From the day the Cardinals activate him, if they do, they'd have 21 days to put him on the active roster.

Four weeks of data is just enough to make a solid forward-looking analysis. After the matchup against Cincinnati this week, here's how Arizona's opponents rank in fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks entering Week 5 (Yahoo! scoring).

Week 6: at Los Angeles Rams; 12th fewest
Week 7: at Seattle Seahawks; 12th-most
Week 8: vs. Baltimore Ravens; 3rd-fewest
Week 9: at Cleveland Browns; 5th-fewest
Week 10: vs. Atlanta Falcons; 16th-fewest
Week 11: at Houston Texans; 9th-fewest
Week 12: vs. Rams; 12th-fewest
Week 13: at Pittsburgh Steelers; 13th most

Not a great fantasy outlook for Dobbs, and it's worth noting he has the latest possible bye (Week 14). But Week 4 against the 49ers and Week 3 against the Cowboys were tough matchups, and he posted 23.4 and 17.1 fantasy points respectively.

Dobbs is a QB2/a streaming option to navigate bye weeks with in leagues with 12 or more teams, nothing more and nothing less. These last few weeks will probably stand as the best we see of him all season in terms of fantasy production over a multi-week stretch, but he is not totally without value moving forward.

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