When J.K. Dobbins was healthy, the Denver Broncos‘ running back room was phenomenal.
Dobbins was elite between the tackles. RJ Harvey was a perfect fit for his role as the receiving threat out of the backfield. Tyler Badie glued the group together with some pass protection.
But when Dobbins was knocked out for the second half of the season, the Broncos never found the right formula. Harvey was forced to run the ball between the tackles more, where he wasn’t nearly as effective. Jaleel McLaughlin found his footing as a change-of-pace back, but his role was sporadic and the Broncos never seemed to capitalize when he was hot.
Is the Broncos’ success when Dobbins was healthy a sign they should run it back with the same running back room?
Or was their inability to piece the puzzle together after Dobbins was hurt a sign that the Broncos need a more sustainable backfield formula in 2026?
Let’s look through where the Broncos’ running backs stand at the start of the offseason.
J.K. Dobbins
The Broncos got what they should have expected from J.K. Dobbins in 2025.
The veteran back put up 5 yards per carry on high volume for the first 10 weeks of the season. His 77.2 rush yards per game are the third-most ever by a Bronco behind Clinton Portis and Terrell Davis. When Dobbins was on the field, he was the identity of Denver’s offense.
But a fluky injury on a hip-drop tackle knocked Dobbins out for the rest of the season.
You could make the case that Dobbins’ injury troubles are improving; he played 23 games over the last two seasons compared to 24 games over the first four seasons of his career.
Still, if you bet on Dobbins’ health in every season of his career, you would have missed on each of the past five seasons. Can the Broncos bet on Dobbins again?
When healthy, Dobbins is a near-perfect fit for the Broncos’ offense.
His physical traits are solid but not special. He doesn’t have breakaway speed. He’s a big back but doesn’t fit the bulldozer category. His contact balance and quick feet earn him plus marks.
Dobbins’ mental game is what separates him.
He understands where holes are about to develop. He’s patient enough to allow them to open. He knows how to take a false step to the left to bait a linebacker and create space to the right.
The Broncos have the best offensive line in the NFL, and when Dobbins is on the field Denver’s run game is elite. They generate holes and, unlike any other Broncos running back in the Sean Payton Era, Dobbins finds them and maximizes them.
That’s why Dobbins had a career year in Denver before the injury. He appeared to be a lock to finish in the NFL’s top five rushers.
If the Broncos bring Dobbins back, it’s easy to see why; the Broncos will have one of the best run games in the NFL in 2026, if he’s stay healthy.
It’s equally easy to see why the Broncos would let him walk; history suggest Dobbins will get hurt. Losing the engine to your offense in the middle of the season isn’t a formula for a postseason run.
If the Broncos decide to move on from Dobbins, they’ll hunt for a back just like him.
For most teams, a speedy back who bounces a bunch of runs to the boundary (sometimes when he shouldn’t) and can bail himself out by beating a defender in space and turning the corner is just as good as a washed-up veteran back who takes what the offensive line gives him and adds nothing more.
Boom-or-bust can average out to be just as efficient as repeating steady little gains.
Not in Denver, though. The holes the offensive line are creating are too valuable to waste. The Broncos must prioritize finding a back who can find them. There’s a free four yards a pop for anybody who knows what he’s doing, even if he doesn’t have much juice.
Dobbins can find the creases at an expert level… and he’s got B+ juice at worst. He was on pace for more than 1,300 yards in 2025, and a year of continuity with the Broncos’ line may bump up his efficiency.
But do the Broncos trust him to stay on the field?
The big games are in December, January and, hopefully, February. If Dobbins is knocked out of the lineup by then, he isn’t worth much of anything in Denver.
RJ Harvey
The Broncos chose RJ Harvey with the 60th pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. Let’s compare him to the other 87 running backs chosen between pick 50 and pick 70 since the NFL moved to a 16-game schedule in 1978.
By fantasy points, only seven of those running backs have been more productive in their rookie seasons.
- 320.4 pts – Alvin Kamara (2017)
- 316.2 pts – Clinton Portis (2002)
- 277.7 pts – Maurice Jones-Drew (2006)
- 242.5 pts – Eddie Lacy (2013)
- 218.7 pts – Miles Sanders (2019)
- 211.2 pts – Kevin Smith (2008)
- 210.9 pts – Jeremy Hill (2014)
- 206.6 pts – RJ Harvey (2025)
Fantasy points aren’t a perfect metric, but they’re a surprisingly useful catch-all stat for total production. And Harvey was in the top 10% of production as a rookie running backs compared to those in his draft range.
He beat out all of the other seven running backs drafted in his range since 2020, a list that included names like J.K. Dobbins and James Cook.
All of this is to say that Harvey was a pretty clear win for the Broncos when you compare Harvey’s production to his draft spot.
Harvey’s total production is buoyed by his 12 touchdowns. Only Portis, Jones-Drew and Kamara had more. Touchdowns are a highly-variable statistic and aren’t a great predictor of future production.
When you strip the touchdowns away (which is just as dangerous as reading too much into them), the numbers still paint a favorable picture of Harvey.
Harvey’s 540 rushing yards rank 26th out of those 88 comparable rookie running backs.
Harvey’s receiving yards rank sixth. His total yards from scrimmage rank 16th, which puts him in the 81st percentile in total rookie yardage. Even without the touchdowns, the Broncos got good bang for their buck with the 60th pick.
The Broncos have something in Harvey… but what exactly is it?
Let’s start here: Harvey is a good receiving running back. He has great hands. He can catch the ball in stride and turn upfield, or catch the ball away from his body on downfield throws. He can track the ball over his shoulder. His speed helps him to create separation and attack a variety of spots on the field, but there’s still room for growth as a route runner.
Harvey’s next step as a receiving back might not have anything to do with catching the ball.
The Broncos didn’t trust Harvey in pass protection during his rookie season. Instead, they turned to Tyler Badie.
On 3rd & 5 or longer, Badie took 92 snaps in 2025. Harvey took 38.
For a receiving back, third-down snaps are worth their weight in gold. The defense is spread out to defend the pass, leaving space underneath and in the middle of the field for the back to leak out and catch a pass. In a Sean Payton offense, the running back is a chess piece, sometimes aligning in the slot or on the boundary depending on what look the defense gives the offense.
But if the running back can’t block, the defense can show a blitz, which locks the running back into the backfield. If the blitz comes, the running back is the protector. If he can’t win one-on-one with a linebacker, the defense gets an easy pressure.
The Broncos didn’t believe Harvey was ready to be their lynchpin in in obvious passing situations in 2025. Can Harvey change that in 2026? If so, there’s no reason he can’t poach all of Tyler Badie’s 31 targets this season, even if he doesn’t grow at all as an actual receiver.
Harvey finished 8th among NFL running backs in receptions and receiving yards in 2025. He finished 3rd in receiving touchdowns. His baseline appears to be a top 10 receiving back, and once he learns to protect, there’s nothing stopping him from being a mainstay in the top 5 for the next half decade. That would be a very good use of a late second-round pick.
To be a star, he’ll need to find his footing between the tackles.
Harvey only managed 3.7 yards per carry in 2025, a significant step below the league average rate of 4.3 yards per carry. Of the 59 other running backs with at least 60 carries last season, only nine registered a lower mark.
The statistical difference between Harvey and Dobbins as pure runners is split pretty evenly between two categories. Dobbins had 37% more pre-contact yardage per rush than Harvey and 33% more post-contact yardage per rush.
The pre-contact difference can primarily be attributed to vision. Unless the Broncos’ offensive line magically got worse whenever Harvey was on the field, the data backs up what Broncos Country saw on the field on Sundays; Harvey wasn’t seeing running lanes like Dobbins did. Harvey’s 146 carries are more than enough to eliminate any “bad luck” when it comes to offensive line play.
Much of the difference in post-contact production comes from Dobbins’ exceptional contact balance. Dobbins is in the upper quartile of NFL rushers in post-contact production. Harvey is only slightly below average, which is just fine for a rookie back known more for his speed than his power.
As of now, Harvey is the exact type of runner that doesn’t make sense for the Broncos. He doesn’t see run lanes often enough. He bounces runs outside too often. Sean Payton can scheme sweeps and tosses to get Harvey into space, but those type of boundary runs don’t maximize an offensive line that is creating three or four free yards whenever you want to run between the tackles against most opponents.
Maybe Harvey can add more juice in the weight room, allowing him to out-athlete defenders more often when he needs to bail himself out of a bad decision. The odds are slim for significant physical changes for a 25-year-old running back, though.
Ideally, Harvey will stop taking the hard route and learn to take what the offensive line is giving him.
The Broncos hope the game will slow down for Harvey in his second NFL season. He’ll trust his blockers more. He’ll understand pre-snap where his run lanes are likely to be. He’ll see the creases as they develop and punch through them.
If Harvey can close the pre-contact gap in efficiency with Dobbins and all else stays the same, he’ll reach league-average rushing efficiency. That’s enough to make him a star in the NFL.
A B-level runner who is an A-level receiver and can block enough to stay on the field on third downs is a dangerous weapon in the right hands. Just ask Alvin Kamara, who has never run for 1,000 yards in a season.
And if Harvey never runs the ball efficiently enough between the tackles to be a star, the Broncos can be happy to have the next James White, Darren Sproles or Austin Ekeler.
Tyler Badie
NFL team’s run the ball a little more than 40% of the time.
When Tyler Badie was on the field for the Broncos in 2025, the Broncos ran the ball 4% of the time.
The 26-year-old former sixth-round pick was a mainstay in the Broncos’ running back rotation all season because he filled a very specific role: he could block for Bo Nix in obvious passing situations.
Badie got a few opportunities to touch the ball—about a target and a half per game— but didn’t provide do enough to force Sean Payton to find more ways to get him the rock.
Badie was fine, but he’s a stopgap as a third-down back until RJ Harvey is ready to take over that role. When that time comes, Badie could be a fit to provide depth on the practice squad, or he could be off to find a third-down role elsewhere.
Until Harvey is a capable blocker, Badie is useful for the Broncos.
Jaleel McLaughlin
Jaleel McLaughlin was on fire to end the season.
Five carries for 37 yards against the Jaguars (7.4 yards per carry).
Then 7 carries for 40 yards against the Chiefs (5.7 yards per carry).
Then 6 carries for 41 yards against the Chargers (6.8 yards per carry).
Then 4 carries for 21 yards against the Bills (5.3 yards per carry).
So why didn’t the Broncos give him the ball more while they were struggling to replace J.K. Dobbins in the offense? That, to me, is an important mystery.
McLaughlin has his limitations. He isn’t a big back. His vision isn’t perfect. He can’t block.
But McLaughlin runs hard and his burst through the hole often creates big play opportunities.
Now McLaughlin is a restricted free agent, and you wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to find a new team that will feed him when he’s hot. With two of three seasons above 5 yards per carry, I won’t be surprised if another team tries to pry him away.
The Broncos clearly don’t see McLaughlin as an important piece. He was a gameday inactive until Dobbins got hurt, and even running with his hair on fire wasn’t enough to earn more touches. If McLaughlin returns to Denver next year, it’s tough to see him being part of the rotation unless a back or two goes down.
Cody Schrader
The Broncos picked up second-year running back Cody Schrader in December. He was on the active roster for a week before he was bumped to the practice squad. He’s under contract for 2026, giving him a chance to compete for a spot in training camp.
Schrader’s only NFL touches came as a rookie in 2024 when he had a six-yard catch and a three-yard run for the Los Angeles Rams.
Schrader is an undersized back who set a Missouri record as a sixth-year senior with 1,627 rushing yards, earning him first-team All-SEC honors. Without any NFL tape, it’s tough to say whether Schrader is a real threat to ever be more than a practice squad player in the NFL, but his college production and aptitude as a wide zone runner make him an interesting prospect with a scouting report similar to McLaughlin’s.
Deuce Vaughn
The Broncos signed Deuce Vaughn in September, after he was waived by the Dallas Cowboys. He spent the entire season on the Broncos’ practice squad and is locked up for 2026, giving him a chance to compete for a job in training camp.
Sean Payton has had success with smaller running backs before, but Vaughn is in a league of his own. At 5-foot-6 and 176 pounds, Vaughn is the shortest running back ever selected in the NFL draft.
Heading into his third NFL season, the 24-year-old will have to prove he can provide depth as a receiving back. His college tape indicates he’s more than capable. He joined DeMarco Murray as the only Big 12 players ever to run for 3,600 yards and 1,250 receiving yards in his career. He did it despite leaving school early for the draft after earning consensus All-America honors.
Like Schrader, tape is limited on Vaughn, but he has a good chance to earn a practice squad shot in camp. For Vaughn to see the field, he’d probably need to be a filling for Harvey.
2026 Outlook
We know one thing for sure: RJ Harvey will be a Denver Bronco in 2026.
Other than that, anything is possible in the Broncos’ running backs room. Dobbins, Badie and McLaughlin could all be back. They could all be replaced.
If the Broncos are looking for a between-the-tackles engine to pair with Harvey, then Breece Hall and Kenneth Walker could be worth a look in free agency, Based on what we saw last year, Dobbins is a better back than any on the open market, though.
Would the Broncos be willing to pay more money for an equal or lesser running back in order to mitigate injury risk at the position? The Broncos will either have to gamble with health or with money.
If the Broncos go with Dobbins, upgrading the third running back spot is a must. A mid-round draft pick might be a good investment. A veteran with experience between the tackles like Tyler Allgeier would provide some insurance in case Dobbins can’t go and the Broncos need to pair somebody else with Harvey.
In order to upgrade the third running back spot, Harvey will have to improve in pass protection. If the Broncos can’t play him on third downs, they’ll have to hold on to Badie or a similar back for third-down purposes.
Getting running back right might be catalyst for another deep playoff run. Denver’s offensive line is ready to lead an elite run game, but without a star running back, it’s tough to see that happening. Will they bet on Dobbins again?
