The NFL season is just 100 days away, and the Denver Broncos have started OTAs down in Dove Valley as the second year of the Bo Nix era slowly rolls into action. These workouts are the first time that the entire team will be on the field together after the 2025 NFL Draft and the ensuing Rookie Minicamp, as all eyes will be on head coach Sean Payton and the Broncos to see if they can make an even greater leap than they did a season ago.
One name that everyone will be keeping an eye on is RJ Harvey, the running back out of UCF that Denver took in the second round of the recent draft. He was a workhorse in college as his 1,577 yards on the ground were the sixth-most by anyone in the country, and has the tools to be a three-down back for Payton in Denver’s offense.
On Tuesday, ESPN NFL Analyst Ben Solak released his ‘100 things to know’ for the upcoming season, which featured a category of names to know. There were 10 players listed in the category as players who “will be big deals in the 2025 season,” with Harvey being one of them.
“The Broncos, who have an incredible offensive line and a coach historically willing to involve the running back in the passing game, drafted Harvey in the second round,” Solak said. “The 24-year-old carried a big load at UCF, so he’s presumably pro-ready for the primary role in the backfield, and he showed some talent in the passing game. The Broncos need better performances from all their non-Courtland Sutton playmakers, and Harvey is first in line to provide that jump.”
The Broncos will need a lot from their rookie back if they want to make it further than a blowout loss in the Wild Card Round in 2025, both on the ground and in the passing game. The talk of whether or not he’ll be Denver’s ‘Joker’ for Payton will likely go on all offseason, as it’s either him or Evan Engram, but he will still play a massive role on that side of the ball whether or not he has that title that has distracted Broncos fans all offseason.
Darren Sproles and Alvin Kamara were both running backs that served as lethal jokers for Payton back in New Orleans, but Harvey recently said that he’s aiming higher than those two guys, and wants to be a better back than they were.
Will Harvey play three downs in the first game of the season? Probably not, but when the games start to become more and more important as the weather gets colder, expect to see him out on the field more than the other backs in the rotation.
Denver had a lackluster rushing attack in 2024 with less than 2,000 yards on the ground, and are hoping that Harvey can be the answer to those woes in 2o25.
Other Broncos-relevant pieces in the ESPN story were the return of Alex Singleton, who should be back and ready to lead Denver’s defense after tearing his ACL in Week 3 last year, the fact that Denver could have the best defense and the best offensive line in the league, and that the Broncos could have made a bigger splash at their skill positions than Engram.
OTAs for the Broncos will take place Tuesday-Thursday of this week and the following as the team gets back in action leading up to the 2025 season.