RJ Harvey

RJ Harvey finished just outside the top twenty backs as a rookie — on twelve total touchdowns that almost certainly don't repeat, behind a back who's penciled in ahead of him. The receiving role is real; the rest needs sorting. The Muffed 2026 preview.

The 2025 season was a productive rookie year in a defined role: a hundred forty-six carries for five hundred forty yards, seven rushing scores, plus forty-seven catches and five receiving touchdowns — ten-eight a game, RB27 per game and RB21 in total. The signature was a three-touchdown, twenty-four point day against Dallas in Week 8. Sean Payton's "joker" — a back used in the slot and out wide as much as in the backfield.

The arc is one rookie season, so there's no trend to lean on — and we don't get to bank a year-two leap for running backs; that pattern failed our testing. What we can read is the shape of the production, and it's a mixed bag.

Here's the tension. The good: forty-seven catches as a rookie is a genuine, sticky receiving role — the kind of usage that floors a back's PPR value regardless of carries. The bad: his touchdown share is thirty-five percent, deep in the top quartile, and twelve total touchdowns on under two hundred touches is a rate that regresses hard. Strip the touchdowns toward normal and the RB21 finish drops; lean on the receiving role and there's a real floor. The two pull against each other.

The situation, per the reports, is the cap — and June added a medical footnote and a third mouth: Harvey, it turns out, tore his shoulder labrum in the AFC Championship game and had surgery this offseason, kept quiet until mid-June; Sean Payton called him a full go at minicamp. J.K. Dobbins re-signed on a two-year deal vowing to be "the number one" — the thunder to Harvey's lightning — and Denver spent a fourth-round pick on Jonah Coleman, which makes the touch math a potential three-way problem. Harvey's receiving role is the protected part; the early-down and goal-line volume that let him score twelve times is the part a healthy Dobbins and a rookie both bid on.

The price: pick eighty-one, the thirty-first back. Verdict: WATCHLIST — the receiving role argues he's underpriced, the touchdown regression and the Dobbins-led split argue the RB21 total finish won't repeat, and those roughly cancel at RB31. The counter for him: a forty-seven-catch back in a creative offense has a receiving floor most late-round backs don't. Against: the finish that makes him look cheap was touchdown-inflated, the carries belong to Dobbins, and now there's a rookie in the room too. A fair price on a useful piece.

September watch: the touchdown rate — the regression is coming, the only question is how far; and the three-way split with Dobbins and Coleman, which caps the ceiling. He's one of your guys? This show covers your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.