RJ Harvey Camp Update — August 31: The Backfield Is Down to Four
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 31
Denver's cutdown settled the room around Harvey: Cody Schrader was waived two days after leading the team in scrimmage yards in the finale, Jaleel McLaughlin went with him, and Tyler Badie was kept as the fourth back for blocking and special teams. The extended look at the touch split never happened, so the Dobbins-Harvey question goes to Kansas City unanswered.
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Denver's backfield got smaller by two on cut day. Cody Schrader was waived despite a team-high hundred 32 scrimmage yards and a touchdown in Friday's finale, Jaleel McLaughlin was waived alongside him, and Denver kept Tyler Badie as its fourth back for blocking and special teams, per Chad Jensen at Mile High Huddle. After waivers cleared Monday, Schrader returned on the practice squad while McLaughlin is not expected back, per Zack Kelberman at Mile High Huddle and Jon Heath at Broncos Wire. Jensen's phrasing is the closest thing to a depth chart anybody published this week — a room of four, with Badie fourth. No reporting we read names the three ahead of him, and we are not going to do that arithmetic on a beat writer's behalf.
The touch-split evidence the week was supposed to produce never arrived. Payton called off the extended-starters plan on Wednesday, per Will Petersen at Denver Sports, and every finale backfield touch that made the recaps belonged to backs Denver waived two days later — McLaughlin scored on a 20-yard run, Schrader caught a 14-yard touchdown, per Craig Peters at Vikings.com. Harvey is named in none of the coverage we read, and no report places Dobbins on the field either, so nothing this week moved the split between them.
For those hearing this fresh: the June read split Harvey's rookie year into a durable half and a rented half — the durable half a real receiving role in Sean Payton's offense, the rented half a touchdown rate that history says regresses — with the structural question being the crowd around him. The crowd is now defined: four backs, with the fourth kept for blocking and special teams. How the touches divide inside that room remains completely undocumented, and last week's hope of an extended preseason answer is gone. We'll be back once there are real touches to count.
_Data via nflverse._
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