Last season, the Denver Broncos’ running back rotation arguably held them back from being more dangerous contenders. The combination of Javonte Williams and Jaleel McLaughlin was relatively ineffective, and it was hardly a surprise when the Broncos addressed the position in the second round of the NFL Draft by taking UCF running back RJ Harvey with the 60th overall pick. They had the opportunity to select Omarion Hampton, who would go on to be the second running back selected after Ashton Jeanty and who’s having a solid season as the Los Angeles Chargers’ starting back, but passed on him in favor of cornerback Jahdae Barron, who’s been relatively unimpressive so far.
Harvey had a great debut in Week 1 against the Tennessee Titans, turning his six carries into 70 yards, although 50 of those yards came on one play midway through the fourth quarter. Since then, he’s been used sparingly, taking seven carries for 10 yards across his last two games as Denver has narrowly lost both games, and he’s only appeared in 30.1% of the team’s offensive snaps this season, a number that has stayed relatively consistent from game to game. J.K. Dobbins, who’s turned his 41 carries into 222 yards and three scores, is clearly Plan A in the Broncos’ running game. Dobbins was Los Angeles’ starting running back last season and is better than either Williams or McLaughlin.
My advice for fantasy managers with Harvey on their roster is going to be the same as it was regarding Ashton Jeanty’s early struggles: three games is an extremely small sample size, and plenty of other really good running backs, including Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley, have had slow starts as well this season. Of course, their situations aren’t perfectly analogous — Henry, Barkley, and Jeanty are all the clear-cut number one running backs on their teams, while Harvey isn’t — but he deserves at least a few more weeks to build a larger role. Harvey will play the Cincinnati Bengals, a dysfunctional organization with a mediocre rush defense, in Week 4, so while he isn’t worth starting, he could make the most of his carries in a reserve role.
Dobbins is going to cool down eventually; his 53.7% success rate and 5.4 yards per carry are the highest marks he’s posted since he played a smaller role with the Baltimore Ravens in the 2020 and 2022 seasons. He’s also likely to get injured, as he hasn’t had a fully healthy season since his rookie year. The middle stretch of his career was particularly rough; he missed all of the 2021 season with a catastrophic knee injury and then tore his Achilles in Week 1 of the 2023 campaign. Denver wouldn’t have invested so much draft capital in Harvey if it didn’t believe he would be the long-term starter.
