J.K. Dobbins entered the season already on a possible hot seat with his new organization, as the Denver Broncos drafted RJ Harvey with the 60th overall pick just a few weeks before picking up Dobbins in free agency. So far this season, though, Dobbins has been Denver’s clear number one back, turning his 41 carries into 222 yards and three scores and adding four catches for 14 yards.
Dobbins will have a chance to build on his stellar start and put Harvey further in the rear-view mirror as the Broncos host the Joe Burrow-less Cincinnati Bengals for an 8:15 p.m. ET Monday Night Football clash.
Denver is a 7.5-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook, with the point total set to 44.5. Below, I’ve detailed my favorite prop bets centered around Dobbins.
Best J.K. Dobbins Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
J.K. Dobbins Race to 20 Rushing Yards (-115)
Not only will Dobbins be the first to reach 20 rushing yards, there might not even be another player who gets there; this season, the Bengals’ Chase Brown has been arguably the worst running back in football, ranking easily dead last among 45 qualified running backs with 2.0 rushing yards per attempt. He also ranks sixth-to-last in rush yards over expectation per attempt and third-to-last among 53 qualified backs in PFF grades. In Cincinnati’s Week 3 demolition at the hands of the Minnesota Vikings, Brown turned his 10 carries into three rushing yards, and neither Jake Browning nor Bo Nix is a huge threat to break off an explosive play.
Dobbins has ranked as roughly a league-average running back this season by PFF’s standards, but that seems a little harsh to me. His 5.4 yards per carry rank seventh in the league (sixth among running backs), and his 53.7% success rate ranks 11th. PFF dings him for being a non-factor in the passing game, but he should still be able to rack up yards effectively against a defense that has allowed the fifth-most rushing yards per game to running backs and has also missed the second-most tackles per game. Dobbins ranks eighth this season in rush yards over expectation per attempt. The only cause for concern is that he’s typically more active and more efficient in the second half, but he still reached 20 yards in just two plays in the Week 2 loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
J.K. Dobbins U14.5 Rushing Attempts (-115)
In Week 3, the Bengals trailed by 31 points at halftime to a Minnesota team starting backup quarterback Carson Wentz, and both teams pulled many of their starters once the game was out of reach. Vikings running back Jordan Mason, for instance, appeared in just 60% of the team’s snaps despite the team being without typical starter Aaron Jones and with Minnesota’s positional depth thin behind him. If the score gets out of hand quickly, it’ll be an opportunity to ease Harvey into an expanded role. So far, Harvey hasn’t taken more than six carries in any game, while Dobbins hasn’t had fewer than 11.
Plus, Cincinnati’s secondary is poor. The Bengals were trounced by the one NFL-caliber quarterback they faced, allowing the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence to amass 271 yards in Week 2, and Nix, despite a slow start to his sophomore season, is closer to Lawrence than he is to Joe Flacco or Wentz. Nix should feel more comfortable throwing to Courtland Sutton and Marvin Mims against outside corners DJ Turner II and Cam Taylor-Britt than he will handing it off to Dobbins.
