RJ Harvey’s Year 2 Fantasy Football Outlook Is Useful, But Complicated

RJ Harvey’s rookie season was useful, just not quite as clean as fantasy managers may have wanted. The second-round pick flashed as a receiver, took on a much larger role after J.K. Dobbins went down, and finished as a usable RB2 in cumulative scoring. But with Dobbins back, Jonah Coleman added to the room, and Denver’s offense potentially shifting away from some of its screen-heavy tendencies, Harvey’s Year 2 projection is more complicated than a simple sophomore breakout bet.

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RJ Harvey’s Rookie Season

With the 60th-overall selection in the 2025 NFL Draft, the Denver Broncos made RJ Harvey the second running back off the board in an attempt to solidify a run game that had been a rotational fantasy nightmare over the previous few seasons. Harvey had been recruited by Virginia as a quarterback before his four-season career at UCF, culminating in a 1,800-plus-yard total in 2024 that clearly turned the heads of Sean Payton and Co.

Harvey figured to be a do-it-all back right out of the gate, emulating a potential third-down-heavy role ala Darren Sproles to bake in an easy fantasy floor. That’s kind of what happened, just in a very haphazard way. The former UCF Knight would finish very respectable RB21 in cumulative half-PPR points, but only RB27 in PPG (10.8) while failing to hit 8.0 points on nine different occasions. Most of those down performances came early, and while it would be easy to chalk the second-half spike up to the usual rookie-year ramp-up, Harvey’s role changed much more directly after J.K. Dobbins suffered a foot injury on a Week 10 hip-drop tackle.

Harvey may have earned more work naturally as the season progressed, but his rushing share probably wouldn’t have tripled without an injury ahead of him. Up to and including Week 10, he handled fewer than 15% of Denver’s rushing attempts four times, including several tight games in which the Broncos clearly trusted Dobbins in the higher-leverage role.

With Dobbins available, Harvey handled 27 attempts when his team was up or trailing by six or fewer points, while the veteran toted the ball 94 times. Early down attempts? It was Dobbins’ 145 to Harvey’s 47. Red zone? 20-to-6. You get the point. There was a clear pecking order in place here, and with the team holding an 8-2 record, it wasn’t liable to change any time soon.

With that said, we can’t ignore what the rookie was able to do when he got the chance, notably in the pass game. From Week 11 onward, Harvey ranked 11th in receiving yards per game (25.9), 8th in targets per route run (0.25), and 12th in yards per route run (1.59) among the position. Additionally, seven of his eight runs of 10+ yards occurred after he was afforded the leadback role. Some of that is simply a product of more touches, but it also matters that Harvey’s explosive runs mostly came when he was allowed to play through drives rather than living on 2-5 carries per game.

Before we project how that workload may be shifting in Year 2, let’s first take a look at the Denver Broncos’ infrastructure ahead of 2026.

The Broncos’ Offense in 2026

The biggest changes to the Denver offense heading into the upcoming season didn’t come within the backfield, but rather the wide receiver room and the quarterback’s headset.

Back in mid-March, the team traded for Dolphins’ speedster Jaylen Waddle, and it should not only improve the team’s overall explosive-play numbers but also help move them away from the dink-and-dunk nature we saw in 2025. Despite leading the league in dropbacks (670), Bo Nix finished 8th in total yardage (3,931), due in part to a 23rd-ranked average depth of target (7.9). With Waddle playing opposite or in line of Courtland Sutton (instead of Troy Franklin/Marvin Mims/Pat Bryant), it should introduce some more verticality to an offense that was often lacking. Waddle hasn’t been known as a deep-seam/nine-route maven over his career, but we also have to factor in that Tua Tagovailoa is the last quarterback we can expect to stick in the pocket to let a downfield route develop, nor does he have anywhere near the play-stretching ability that Nix has.

In addition to giving the team a second solid option to threaten deep, Waddle gives them one of the best yards-after-catch receivers to take advantage of defenses biting on the run game. Nix had the third-most pass attempts out of play action last year (170) yet ranked 24th in EPA/attempt (0.06) on those throws. His new weapon is a massive upgrade in the intermediate areas of the field and can easily take advantage of out-of-place secondary pieces on big play-action crossing routes and the like.

The other (potential) change to the offense is Sean Payton’s claim that he has handed play-calling duties over to Davis Webb. If this sticks throughout the season, it’s hard to say exactly how it will change the offense as a whole, but there’s a distinct possibility we'll see less reliance on screens. Only the Dolphins (178) have thrown more screen passes than the Broncos (177) over the last two seasons. It’s possible Denver was trying to give Nix as many easy looks as they could as he continued to develop, but if that is the case, it’s not particularly great news for their running backs. Backs were targeted on 88 of those 177 screens, and less work in the passing game is less than ideal for fantasy purposes.

So how will the addition of Waddle and a potential decrease in screen usage impact the bottom line for Dobbins, Harvey, and newcomer Jonah Coleman?

Projecting the Broncos’ Backfield in Fantasy

Any hope we might have had of a clean backfield for Harvey to take an obvious sophomore leap was dashed early in free agency, when the team re-signed Dobbins to a two-year deal worth up to $20M. His $8M AAV didn’t quite reach the levels of a Kenneth Walker or Travis Etienne, but it did place him at the top of the second tier of signings this offseason, including Kenneth Gainwell ($7M), Rico Dowdle ($6.1M), and Tyler Allgeier ($6.1M). This means we can pretty aggressively etch him back into that early-down role heading into the season, despite his incredibly lengthy injury history.

That injury history made a further addition to this backfield a near certainty, and that’s exactly what Denver did in the fourth round of the NFL Draft when they added former Washington Husky Jonah Coleman. Coleman profiles as a between-the-tackles banger who is at his best falling forward for the final yard or two; a 225-pound back who should fit the “Audric Estime” role better than the current Saint has over his two seasons in the league.

His addition is a further threat/insulation from Harvey’s often terrible down-to-down performances as a rookie. Harvey averaged 2.3 yards created after contact on 85 post-bye carries last year, ranking 49th among 56 qualifying backs. Over the course of the entire season, he had 65 runs that SIS deemed “left inside”, “middle”, or “right inside”; he averaged 3.6 yards per attempt and a 16.9% stuffed rate. Among 56 backs, he ranked 42nd and 36th, respectively. All this behind the best offensive line in the league.

Not all hope is lost for Harvey in fantasy, though, even if Coleman is the more likely option to step into an early-down role were Dobbins to go down. His presence in the receiving game is bound to be too valuable. While his usage won’t be as immaculate as that of three-down receiving threats like Christian McCaffrey or Bijan Robinson, Harvey has the chance to log 225 opportunities, with an outsized number of those coming as targets. Should his 9.5% rookie target share jump to 11% or higher, we’re looking at a guy who could reasonably hit 50-60 receptions. We just have to keep in mind that those easy screens could decline if Payton has truly handed over play-calling duties.

I view Harvey as more of a floor play, due to relative inefficiency in the running game and what we should assume will be a sharp touchdown regression. That makes him a “safe” RB3 in fantasyland, though I will admit there could be some hidden ceiling here if both Dobbins and Coleman underperform. The fourth-rounder is someone we can safely keep on waivers for what we can presume will be his entire rookie season, while the veteran Dobbins is hamstrung as a fellow RB3 due to the backfield competition and the likelihood that Sutton and Waddle will demand plenty of work themselves.

Bottom Line

• RJ Harvey remains the most interesting receiving back in Denver’s offense, and his late-season rookie usage showed there is a path to RB2 production if the backfield thins out again. His passing-game role gives him a safer weekly floor than most committee backs.
• That said, this is not a clean Year 2 breakout setup. J.K. Dobbins was clearly ahead of Harvey before his injury, Jonah Coleman adds another early-down/short-yardage body, and Denver’s addition of Jaylen Waddle could shift some of the offense away from the screen-heavy structure that helped keep Harvey involved as a rookie.
• According to current Underdog ADP, Harvey is coming off boards as the RB31 at the 7/8 turn, sandwiched between Rhamondre Stevenson and Rico Dowdle. I would take him 10 days a week over Dowdle, but when we get much higher than that, we’re really pushing up against players we think have a very good shot at three-down roles. At cost, Harvey is best viewed as a safer RB3 with receiving-driven upside rather than a true lead-back bet. He can be useful in managed leagues and should carry even more appeal in best ball formats, but his ceiling likely depends on Dobbins missing time or Harvey making a meaningful second-year jump as a runner.