RJ Harvey is an asymmetrical bet

By some accounts, the Broncos reached for Harvey; that's a good thing

The main thrust of this post is that RJ Harvey will see plenty of touches this year, which may not come as much of a surprise given most observers felt the Denver landing spot was one of the two or three best in the league for a running back. Javonte Williams is gone, and he leaves behind a role where he played an average of 53% of the team’s snaps, despite being woefully ineffective all year, including a season-high 74% in the Broncos’ lone playoff game, a loss in Buffalo.

However you slice it, Sean Payton just did not see enough in Jaleel McLaughlin and Audric Estime to cut into Javonte’s playing time. And that shouldn’t have been too difficult, given Javonte’s -83 Rush Yards Over Expected ranked fourth worst in the NFL last year, per NFL Pro. NFL Pro also has just five qualified rushers with fewer runs of 10+ yards, out of 44 players, and just four of those 44 hit 15+ miles per hour on fewer rushes. It was a tough watch for this Javonte supporter who went into each week hoping and looking for some evidence he was turning a corner.

As far as why Javonte played so much, people will point to things like pass protection, and there’s certainly something there; Javonte’s size — and Payton’s desire for a back with some size to fill a specific role — was a big reason I liked the bet in fantasy, because I expected him to play throughout the year even if he struggled. Because he struggled in 2023, the price was right in 2024 given the workload protection; unfortunately, a weighted bet that was correct on premise and probably only needed below average efficiency to pay off (with real upside) instead got bottom-barrel efficiency.

And that does make it hard to understand how either McLaughlin or Estime didn’t displace Javonte. The pass-blocking stuff is often overblown; Javonte averaged just 6.1 pass-blocking snaps per game across his 18 games. Given how poor he was whenever the ball was in his hands — the primary function of a running back — it was one of the more bizarre storylines of 2024 that he kept playing to the degree he did. (Again, I write this as someone who made that specific argument, that he would keep playing no matter what. Even I clearly saw he was so bad he should have been benched. I love to look back on my arguments and analyze whether I was right or wrong for the right or wrong reasons; the Javonte experience was a wild one in 2024, and for what it’s worth my conclusion is essentially that I think the analysis was correct but the lesson was a reminder that certain types of analysis can be correct but still not pay off, something many analysts struggle with. We always need to be sure the things we’re playing actually accomplish the objectives of winning in fantasy-related ways, when we’re correct. That said, I still think the cost was right on Javonte and the ways we play uncertainty, he’s a bet I would make again.)

Anyway, this all sets the stage for why Denver was such a great RB landing spot. The only other backs on the roster are McLaughlin and Estime, plus Tyler Badie — who had a very short-lived run and has his supporters, but some who suggest he was taking over the backfield when he got hurt are making huge assumptions given this guy literally played 21 total snaps the entire 2024 season before that debilitating back injury, and only five in the game where he was supposedly taking over but actually got injured — and then 2024 UDFA Blake Watson, who was on the roster last year and got 5 total touches. Late in the year, it felt like McLaughlin and Estime were taking over as they dominated touches in Weeks 17 and 18, but then the Wild Card game happened, and Javonte played throughout (mostly on passing downs with the Broncos largely trailing, granted).

Enter RJ Harvey, the UCF back who Sean Payton took in the second round, as one of just six RBs in what is considered a strong class to be selected before Day 3. In other words, teams still showed some restraint at the position, except for a couple isolated situations. Harvey was the poster boy for that, coming off the board as the fifth RB selected at pick 60, after the near-consensus top four all came off in the top-40 picks. (Kaleb Johnson then came off at pick 83 as the only back in Round 3, before selections of the position picked back up in Round 4.)

Briefly, Harvey’s profile is a fun one. He’s an older back but displayed really strong Missed Tackles Forced numbers, including more than 0.31 per touch in three straight seasons from 2022-2024. Anything over 0.30 is typically very strong in that metric; for one point of reference, while Ashton Jeanty broke that stat with two seasons over 0.40, the other Round 1 RB in this class, Omarion Hampton, had a career-high MTF/touch season of 0.295 in 2024. It should be noted Hampton was much better in Yards After Contact per Attempt in each of his two high-volume seasons than Harvey was in any of his three, and YACo/Att would be the other important advanced metric to consider alongside MTF/touch.

This isn’t necessarily a great comp as the reason these two profiles differ in those metrics largely comes down to the style of back. Hampton is a big back, in the mold we might call a three-down guy. Harvey has great speed and explosion numbers to go with an undersized 5-8, 205-pound frame.

In other words, at Harvey’s size, it’s important he posted really good MTF numbers. He needs to be an evasive back to create space. But he did that on the way to totaling more than 1,000 yards from scrimmage each of the past three seasons, including more than 1,600 in each of the past two — years in which UCF had joined the Big 12 and started to play some tougher competition — with 17 and 25 total touchdowns in those two seasons. The raw numbers have been fantastic, the advanced numbers have been good, and then it has to be noted that these red pass-blocking grades from PFF are not great.

Harvey’s small stature puts him more in the mold with McLaughlin, Badie, and Watson, all of whom are 5-9 or smaller. Importantly, all three are under 200 pounds, while Harvey is thicker, and up over that number despite being just 5-8. I often think of Ray Rice when it comes to a back this size, and Rice’s Wikipedia lists him at 5-8, 206, so a virtual clone for Harvey. Rice is a tricky comp, but was a fantasy star with multiple seasons over 2,000 yards from scrimmage and four straight over 1,600, before punching his then-fiancee in the incident he’s more widely remembered for. In terms of this discussion, he’s evidence of a back of this size handling big workloads, with 300+ touches across those four biggest seasons of his six-year career.

The other important thing for Harvey vis-a-vis the other three undersized backs on Denver’s roster is those three were already on the roster when Harvey was selected in the second round, well ahead of where his consensus Big Board slot suggested he might go. The Fantasy Footballers’ Kyle Borgognoni shared this fascinating cohort that Harvey falls into, with the note that these are “Day 1 and 2 RBs who went 20+ spots higher in the actual draft than their final Mock Draft Database big board consensus rank.” (As always, I wish I could just embed the tweet, but that’s no longer possible on Substack. My apologies, Kyle.)

Much of what I saw in response to this group suggested it was a mixed bag, or else leaned negative. I’ll note that there are just not that many players who wind up being massively productive relative to those who are actually drafted, and thus nearly all cohorts of this type tend to include several busts.

One response I got after quote-tweeting Kyle’s post called this four clear hits and 15 clear misses (he said this in dynasty terms, and in relation to the price of a late first-round rookie pick), which just felt wrong. I assume the clear hits are Jahmyr Gibbs, Nick Chubb, James Conner, and James Cook, but that leaves out Rachaad White, which would just be odd given three straight 50-catch seasons with over 1,000 yards and 9 TDs twice, and then also several other backs who were productive enough early that you can’t call them “clear misses” for a late first. Antonio Gibson started his career with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons with double-digit touchdowns in both. Miles Sanders went for 1,300+ twice in his first four years, and then 900+ in his other two. Devin Singletary started his career with five straight seasons over 950. AJ Dillon had over 1,100 yards in his second season, then 976 in his third, and maintained dynasty trade value into the latter part of his rookie contract. Alexander Mattison is another guy who saw his value maintain enough that he was something like a fifth-round redraft pick when Dalvin Cook finally left Minnesota. Rashaad Penny was one of the few injury-related busts on this list, but once healthy under the same regime who drafted him, he had some truly elite stretches (in nine career games where he played at least 45% of the snaps, Penny went over 100 yards from scrimmage seven times, with six games of at least 129 rushing yards and 11 total touchdowns; god damn he was good).

Several of these names feel like clear busts here in 2025 because their careers ended like most careers, with an inability to stay healthy or perform at a certain point. But it’s just recency bias to lean on those newer memories and forget what they once were.

But I’m not here to litigate how much we should consider these names busts. As always, I hate comps and player cohorts when used this way, because each player is unique. Trying to understand Harvey’s situation with this kneejerk reaction of whether you remember these names as good or bad is pretty silly. What’s more interesting to me about this great post from Kyle, is that these guys — even the ones I haven’t named yet — tended to get a lot of work from the teams who drafted them.

I posted in my quote tweet that draft capital — and in particular reaches — tells us something about what the team thinks of the player. It’s often said that it only takes one team to reach, and one of the things that would logically follow about reaches would be it being difficult for them to live up to expectation. I’m not really concerned with the type of analysis that forces my opinion of Harvey to be considered through the lens of his draft status as the 60th-overall pick, though.

What I think about this cohort is it’s a group of teams that either aren’t very smart, or really liked the specific RB and didn’t want to risk losing him. That first part is important, because a cohort that includes reaching on an RB is obviously going to include some teams who don’t give weight to positional value, which is a pretty basic concept that considers the cost to acquire of free agents and the average cost of second contracts at different positions. Positional value isn’t the end-all, be-all of NFL draft strategy, but it’s unquestionably easier to fill out certain positions in other ways, making it also unquestionable that the surplus value of a rookie-contract hit is greater at certain positions. This is pretty elementary stuff, and acknowledging it doesn’t mean hating RBs or conspiring to keep players’ wages down; it’s just commentary on the reality of the market.

Anyway, it doesn’t shock me that the bad version of the Lions and Kerryon Johnson are on this list. It doesn’t shock me that two Kyle Shanahan backs are here, as the Trey Lance trade and other picks in that era can be added to the Trey Sermon and Tyrion Davis-Price data points to make a pretty compelling case the 49ers weren’t real keen on big board consensus, and there was also a significant disconnect between capital spent and playing time on that particular roster, in those couple years, relative to basically any other team. Outliers do exist and it’s OK to acknowledge them.

These are the types of discussions that are important context I think is missed in a lot of cohort analysis, because every profile — and team situation — is very unique in this sport. But the thing about this cohort that I find to be very interesting is the reality that this is a list of RBs who all got a lot of early work. This is important because for young RBs, especially in dynasty, maintaining value is often just about getting touches.

Guys who aren’t very good but who get a ton of touches tend to maintain value. Najee Harris did across multiple years. Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who is on this list, did as well. I don’t mean that you could get the exact same return in a trade after Year 1 that you could before they played, but rather that their value didn’t crater, and you could find a suitor who would give you 80% of their previous value, or more, even after significant evidence suggested they weren’t special backs. I know this because I saw it in leagues in real time, and also because they maintained redraft ADP the next season.

Meanwhile, consider what you think of a guy like Trey Benson right now. A second-round pick last year, Benson’s inability to get Year 1 touches has really impacted the way his NFL future is viewed. This is also reflected in his redraft ADP, which has fallen significantly from last year, despite Conner being a year older and the Cardinals not adding any significant RB2 competition this year.

I know this sounds like an odd point, but RB is a position where you’re tasked with doing so much stuff that if you just get the work, you’ll likely have something useful to point to. Guys who don’t have rushing efficiency often have a few touchdowns or caught a few passes. Rachaad White was very poor as an early-career runner, but going into last year was still viewed favorably as the clear lead back. Until he lost the work to Bucky Irving, that is. Without the touches, the commenter I referenced above doesn’t even see this guy as a dynasty hit anymore, even though he was the overall RB4 in his second season, and has only played three years.

So anyway, let’s go name by name and talk about the actual usage of this cohort of “overdrafted” Day 1 and 2 RBs that their teams just had to have. Here’s the image again, sorted by year.

• James Conner didn’t do much as a rookie actually, but was in some ways still coming back from the cancer he overcame in college. He had 270 touches, 1470 yards, and 13 TDs in Year 2, and has been a workhorse since.

• Rashaad Penny’s career is obviously asterisked with injury-related issues, and it’s also notable the Seahawks under John Schneider made a habit of reaching on a ton of players relative to consensus big board rankings in a way that didn’t always reflect them viewing the player as special.

• Nick Chubb rose to the top of a crowded backfield as a rookie with 212 touches, then had 334 for 1772 yards in Year 2 before becoming a workhorse.

• Kerryon Johnson had 150 touches in 10 games as a rookie and then 123 more in eight games in Year 2, for a 17-game pace of 258 across his first two years. He struggled enough that his last NFL touch came in just his third season, but still saw plenty of early-career work.

• Royce Freeman got 144 touches in 14 games as a rookie and then 175 in 16 games in Year 2. My recollection of him was he was maybe going to be the exception to this point I’m making, but that’s strong usage for a guy who wound up a bust.

• Miles Sanders played only 12 games in each of his second and third seasons, so the raw touches were lower those years, between 160 and 200. He had 229 as a rookie and 279 in Year 4, his final in Philadelphia. In other words, he was a starting running back for the majority of his rookie contract.

• Devin Singletary split backfields but got 180 touches as a rookie and only scaled up from there across his years in Buffalo.

• Alexander Mattison backed up an in-his-prime superstar in Dalvin Cook, but was the clear No. 2 who got workhorse duties when Cook missed time. Mattison had touch counts of 110, 109, and 166 across his first three seasons, solid work for a backup.

• Clyde Edwards-Helaire had 217 touches and 1100 yards in just 13 games as a rookie, then 138 more touches in just 10 games in Year 2, before the workload started to fall off in Year 3.

• AJ Dillon joined a team with an in-his-prime star in Aaron Jones, and had just 48 touches as a rookie, but he quickly moved to 221 in Year 2 as the backfield became a timeshare. He’d see at least 200 touches in each of the next two seasons, even as his production slipped, before not playing in 2024.

• Antonio Gibson is a fun example in that the team progressively soured on his rushing ability, but you can see how he still maintained status. Over his four years in Washington, he caught between 36 and 48 passes in every season, but his carries went from 170 as a rookie to 258 in Year 2, then to 149 and finally down to 65 in his final season there. In other words, he had 206 touches as a rookie, then 300 in Year 2 (for 1331 yards and 10 TDs), before he was back down to 195 touches in Year 3 and then 113 in his final season in Washington, as the rushing work had completely dried up by that point.

• Ke’Shawn Vaughn is one of the true counters on this list, other than the two Kyle Shanahan backs that are also clear others. He got just 31 touches as a rookie, and then a career-high 40 in Year 2, which is obviously very little.

• Darrynton Evans was well-regarded in Tennessee, but played just five games as a rookie and then just one in Year 2, before being shipped out because he just couldn’t stay healthy. Obviously injuries are going to keep some backs off the field, but it’s worth noting Evans was a popular redraft sleeper option in those early years; there was hype here that suggests it was mostly just the injuries to blame for him not getting some work.

• Trey Sermon famously got out-played by sixth-round rookie Elijah Mitchell, and only lasted one season in San Francisco, with just 44 touches.

• James Cook got 110 touches as a rookie before 281 in Year 2, and 239 last year. He posted 1567 yards and 6 TDs in 2023 and then 1267 and 18 in 2024.

• Rachaad White got 179 touches alongside the established Leonard Fournette in his rookie year, in Tom Brady’s final season, which is to say he played quite a bit on a veteran team. He then got 336 touches in 2023, for 1539 yards, despite not actually being very good.

• Like Sermon, Tyrion Davis-Price never got much run in actual games, with just 40 touches across two years before being shipped out of San Francisco.

• Jahmyr Gibbs isn’t really a fair comp given how high he went, but he has obviously been integral to Detroit’s offense across his two seasons, with touch totals of 234 and 302, and more than 3,000 total yards with 31 TDs.

• Kendre Miller has struggled to stay healthy to such a degree his coach openly hated him in media sessions and sent him to IR seemingly out of spite, in one of his last moves before being fired, despite him reportedly being 100% healthy.

So to sum that all up, we have a few injury-related situations, as expected, and we have a couple Kyle Shanahan backs and Ke’Shawn Vaughn. But for other guys like Kerryon Johnson, Royce Freeman, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, and AJ Dillon — guys regarded as busts by many — the workload in the early years was much stronger than you may remember.

The key takeaway from the cohort we’re discussing here is that Harvey is going to get work. Stepping outside that cohort, the situation in Denver is one that supports that claim, as I detailed in the first few paragraphs of this post. These facts may seem obvious, but Harvey’s a controversial figure because he did go higher than anticipated, and because he’s an older prospect who already turned 24 this year.

Because of those things, I’ve seen several comments about why Harvey is being overdrafted in the late first round of rookie drafts. His early ADP over on Underdog with their release of Best Ball Mania is 73.7, or at the Round 6/7 turn, but I assume he’s rising and that isn’t necessarily settled. If that’s about where he winds up, it feels extremely palatable to me. To some, though, it may feel lofty for an undersized, older prospect from a smaller school who was potentially overdrafted.

Regardless of where Harvey winds up, he’s likely to evoke some feelings of being richly priced for those reasons. But we have to understand unique circumstances, and every player is a different cost/benefit analysis, with a different range of outcomes.

While I’m not all in on Harvey at any cost — I do think the size issue could be a limitation — seeing this cohort today did make me feel better about Harvey’s profile, in that I felt even more confident that Harvey would get real work. I will maintain some concern Payton is always going to do rotational stuff, but Day 2 names like Trey Benson and Blake Corum — guys who didn’t get much work early on — don’t show up on this list, and I think that’s pretty notable.

Sure, Audric Estime’s size — and the potential the Broncos still add another back of size given Estime is the only guy over 210 on the roster right now — will get Estime or that other back on the field some. But what that cohort told us was the same as what the Javonte experience told us last year — it feels like almost regardless of how bad Harvey could potentially be, he should be expected to play, and get real touches. That’s a pretty nice floor, considering his profile actually includes some real efficiency upside in those sexy MTF numbers, and the raw stats he put up over the past couple years. What this post is saying is that the volume should be there for Harvey to be another asymmetrical bet. If instead of sucking he’s actually someone who really splashes at the next level, then we’re talking about a huge 2025 hit.