Broncos Rookie RB RJ Harvey Nominated for NFL Award

Selected No. 60 overall in April's draft, Harvey logged a team-high 70 rushing yards on only six carries during Denver's 20-12 win against Tennessee. The UCF product had the highlight of an otherwise lackluster offensive showing, busting a 50-yard scamper in the fourth quarter that set up the eventual game-deciding touchdown by fellow RB JK Dobbins.

“It just says that no matter what adversity that we go through, we can always bounce back," Harvey said of the Broncos overcoming a slow start. "That's what our team is made of. Just coming back from our mistakes, and we've got to limit those mistakes. If we don't have any mistakes, the sky is the limit.”

Though stuck in a timeshare with Dobbins, Harvey will continue to be utilized as a central component of Payton's offense and, going forward, stands to receive more than the 22 snaps he played in Week 1 — potentially beginning Sunday at Indianapolis.

“Early on, it was obvious right from the stretch there were more passes early in the openers," Payton said Monday. "Then sometimes when you have an RPO and it gets thrown, you’re calling it for it be a running play. Sometimes you have a running play that’s checked out of versus a certain defense, and then all of a sudden you’ve thrown the ball 14 times and run the ball three times. So having enough in your run game offense where you can get up and know that you’re going to have a handoff. It may be one that goes run-to-run, or you can kill it to another run. I think our focus in the second half shifted that way to where I don’t ever want the defense to dictate.

"There are times where we want to run the RPOs, there are times we want to kill to the throws but there are also times when we want to run the ball. We kind of moved in that direction in the second half and then hit some big plays where we knew it was going to be a run. So I have to be better there, and it’s one of those day afters where you look back and say, ‘All right, let’s look at how we really wanted to start this game,’ and get those two runners going because we think we’ve really improved in that area.”