Busting Out: RJ Harvey

I remember the talk pre-draft last year. RJ Harvey was Sean Payton's guy. Then they went and grabbed him in Round 2. 

The new Joker? Kamara Light?

Fantasy managers couldn't stop talking about what Harvey might become. A versatile running back in a Sean Payton offense has always been an exciting fantasy proposition. Naturally, expectations followed. Then the games started, and JK Dobbins looked like the trusted option.

RJ Harvey averaged 3.7 yards per carry as a rookie. That's not good. On 146 carries, Harvey produced only 540 rushing yards. Denver's continued investment at running back creates an obvious question: If the Broncos believe Harvey is their featured back, why do they keep adding competition? They could easily have let J.K. Dobbins walk in free agency as opposed to pay him $8 million a year for the next two seasons. Jonah Coleman doesn't feel like a need in the fourth round. Those are fair concerns. NFL teams usually tell us what they think through their roster decisions. Denver has continued adding bodies to the running back room, and it's reasonable to wonder whether they're simply searching for someone better. If that's your takeaway, I get it.

I think we need to look at this situation through a slightly different lens. Through the first 10 weeks of the season, Harvey had a snap percentage of 29.2%. After Dobbins injury that increased to 61%. Despite a very light workload to start the season, Harvey still caught 47 of 58 targets for 356 yards as a rookie. That's an 81% catch rate and more than 7.5 yards per reception. He finished with 896 scrimmage yards despite receiving fewer than nine carries per game.

That's the stat that keeps pulling me back in. We get so caught up chasing rushing volume that we forget where fantasy points actually come from. In PPR formats, a reception that gets tackled at the line of scrimmage scores the same as a ten-yard carry. Receiving backs don't have to dominate early-down work to become weekly fantasy starters. Sean Payton has built fantasy-relevant backs in different ways throughout his career. Alvin Kamara rarely needed 20 carries to finish among the week's top running backs because his receiving role created such a stable weekly floor. I'm not saying Harvey is Kamara. Very few players are. But Payton has consistently shown a willingness to feature backs who can create mismatches in space rather than simply pound the ball between the tackles.

Dobbins' receiving work was non-existent last year. Coleman is a capable receiver, but profiles more as the back most likely to vulture at the goal line. That leaves Harvey with the role that matters most for fantasy. Maybe Harvey never gets 250 carries. Who cares? Give him 150 carries again, increase the receiving work from 47 catches to 60, and let Sean Payton figure out the rest. I'll take a target over a carry any day, and I expect Harvey to get the lion's share in this backfield.

There's also another benefit to drafting players like Harvey. His path to beating his ADP doesn't require everything to go perfectly. He doesn't need Dobbins to disappear. He doesn't need Coleman to fail. He simply needs Sean Payton to continue using him in the role he was already carving out as a rookie while taking a modest step forward as a runner. I expect his snap share to increase from week 1 in his second season.

That's a much easier bet to make than projecting a complete overhaul of Denver's backfield. Harvey isn't being drafted as someone who has already broken out. He's being drafted as someone who still has questions. If the rushing efficiency improves even a little while the receiving role grows the way I expect, we'll all stop worrying about how many carries he gets. We'll just be happy to plug him into our weekly line up.