When J.K. Dobbins went down with a foot injury in Week 10, the Broncos’ entire season felt like it hit a wall. What had been one of the league’s best rushing attacks — 137.8 yards per game and 5.5 yards on first-down carries- suddenly looked in peril.
Dobbins had been a wrecking ball. He boasted 772 yards, 5.0 per carry, 424 yards after contact, and a league-leading 53.6% success rate. Without him, the ground game cratered to 3.4 yards per carry. First-down runs shrank to under 3 yards. Broken tackles disappeared, and defenses started daring Bo Nix to throw into crowded boxes. The offense became predictable, the play-action lost its bite, and playoff hopes began to slip away.
Everyone assumed Denver would struggle to run the football for the rest of the year. Then they gave the ball to a 5-foot-8 rookie nobody was ready for.
Enter RJ Harvey
Along came RJ Harvey, the second-round pick out of UCF, whom the Broncos traded up for. He spent the first half of the season as the change-of-pace complement to Dobbins’s power. Harvey arrived with substantial questions about his lack of size.
However, his tape provided answers. Harvey is UCF’s all-time touchdown leader with 48 scores, back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons, and a senior year explosion of over 1,400 rushing yards and 16 touchdowns.
Most fans wrote him off as a third-down specialist or gadget player at best. They overlooked how Sean Payton has built a Hall-of-Fame resume, turning undersized, shifty backs into offensive cornerstones. Since Dobbins went down, Harvey has seized the lead role and breathed life back into the Broncos’ offense.
Through 13 games, he’s piled up 354 rushing yards and five touchdowns on the ground. He added 37 receptions for 247 yards and four more scores through the air. This put him in elite rookie company alongside names like Alvin Kamara and Saquon Barkley. He is one of just six rookies since 1990 with at least five rushing and four receiving touchdowns.
A Different Style, Same Danger
Harvey doesn’t replace Dobbins pound for pound, and that’s precisely what makes him dangerous in a different way. Dobbins bullied defenders with power and yards after contact. Harvey makes them miss in space with elite vision, burst, and balance. He racks up a high missed-tackle rate and turns checkdowns into chain-movers.
His receiving production has also exploded lately. With zero drops and a growing route share, he offers Bo Nix a reliable safety valve on third downs. He’s even chipped in over 350 kickoff return yards, adding another layer of versatility. Teammates like tackle Mike McGlinchey rave about his weekly improvement: “His movement skills and strength are impressive. He’s gotten better every week.
High Praise
It’s clear, now, where the Alvin Kamara comparisons start ringing true—and they’re impossible to ignore under the same coach. Kamara’s rookie year in New Orleans showed how doubts about size could melt away as he racked up 81 catches and 13 total scores. Harvey faced the same “too small” label but answered with a similar leap from third-down role to every-down weapon.
Both players are shifty, explosive in space, and turn short passes into significant gains. Payton himself has fueled the fire, saying earlier this year, “You haven’t seen anything yet” when asked about Harvey’s ceiling. He also noted the rookie’s rare gift for making the game slow down in the open field. Harvey is already on pace to challenge Kamara’s rookie reception totals. His touchdown production has fantasy managers rostering him at 90% while projections slot him as a solid RB2 moving forward.
Broncos Adapt and Thrive with Harvey’s Rise
The bottom line is simple: the Broncos didn’t lose their run game when Dobbins went down. They adapted, unlocking a different kind of threat that keeps defenses guessing. As the Broncos look to make a late push for the one seed in the AFC, Harvey’s emergence couldn’t be more timely. Now, as the lead back, he’s poised for even more evolution under Sean Payton, who has long prized versatile weapons that stretch defenses horizontally and vertically.
Payton has already hinted at ramping up Harvey’s involvement in the passing game, calling him a “unique weapon” after the rookie’s career-high five catches for 51 yards and a 27-yard touchdown wheel route against Houston in early November. That performance included a fourth-quarter score that flipped a tight game. It showcased how Payton envisions deploying Harvey: not just as a checkdown option, but on designed routes like flats, screens, and wheels. These plays exploit linebackers in space and create mismatches against safeties.
With zero drops on 37 targets this season and a growing 28% route share since Week 11, Harvey is proving he can handle the volume. If Payton leans in, as he did with Alvin Kamara (81 receptions as a rookie), Harvey could eclipse 50 catches down the stretch, adding 300+ receiving yards. This would force defenses to lighten the box on early downs. That approach would supercharge Bo Nix’s play-action bootlegs and open up the deep shot to Courtland Sutton. The transformation of Denver’s offense from balanced to downright unpredictable would occur.
The secret weapon nobody saw coming is now impossible to ignore as the full-time guy. At just 24 years old, RJ Harvey is only getting started in Mile High.
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