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Jeff Legwold
LAS VEGAS — In his eight NFL seasons, Denver Broncos right tackle Mike McGlinchey has seen plenty of running backs he’s blocked for prove themselves on playoff teams. And he feels like rookie running back RJ Harvey is ready to join that list after his effort on Sunday.
«He played his ass off, and he’s been playing his butt off,» McGlinchey said. «And I can’t wait to see what he keeps doing.»
In a rugged-by-design 24-17 win against the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium, Harvey had career bests in carries (17), rushing yards (75) and receptions (six), helping the Broncos execute a game plan in which they plotted to use the running game to slug it out against the Raiders.
It was the type of performance the Broncos had hoped for from Harvey with J.K. Dobbins on injured reserve. Harvey’s 3-yard touchdown run in the third quarter also gave him the team lead in rushing touchdowns (five) and total touchdowns (nine).
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«RJ is coming into form, he’s making humongous plays for our football team,» McGlinchey said. «He did a little bit of everything. He protected well when he needed to, ran the ball well, obviously caught a lot of passes that moved the chains.»
It almost seems fitting that the best day of Harvey’s NFL career came against the Raiders, since Dobbins was placed on injured reserve in the days following the Broncos’ 10-7 victory over the Raiders in their first meeting on Nov. 6 in Denver. Any thought the Broncos had of continuing their more measured ramp-up for Harvey officially ended when Dobbins suffered a foot injury that night, and Broncos coach Sean Payton has said that the 24-year-old Harvey has «had to grow up fast.»
«It speaks for itself … RJ does it all,» Broncos defensive end John Franklin-Myers said. «He catches the ball, he runs the ball, he blocks, I mean he tries to block me in practice. To be a rookie and show that it means the most to us.»
Payton, the Broncos’ playcaller, said recently «you haven’t seen anything yet,» when asked about Harvey’s potential in the offense. The rookie was brought along slowly, as Harvey had four or fewer carries in six of Denver’s first 10 games. Dobbins’ production (he rushed for 772 yards in the first 10 games) and reliability when games were tight factored into Harvey’s slow acceleration. But in the three games since Dobbins was injured, Harvey has 41 of his 91 carries for the season.
That puts the rookie, who was selected in the second round of April’s draft (No. 60), squarely at the intersection of the team’s needs and his own progress. At 11-2, with the potential tiebreaker over the New England Patriots assured, the Broncos have the inside track for the AFC’s No. 1 seed if they can keep pace with the Patriots during the final four weeks of the season.
While the Broncos hold out faint hopes of a Dobbins return if they go deep into the playoffs (would likely have to be the Super Bowl), Harvey is unquestionably Denver’s RB1 the rest of the way.
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Several of his teammates pointed to what seemed like a rather innocuous 3-yard reception in the first quarter on Sunday as a preview of what Harvey could be. Harvey looked like he might be stopped short of the first-down marker but powered through the initial tackle attempt by Raiders linebacker Jamal Adams to give Denver its first third-down conversion of the game.
«That’s one of the hardest hitters I’ve ever played with,» said Franklin-Myers, who played with Adams on the Jets. «RJ plays with one speed, you’re not going to bring him down, you got to get people to the ball, you got to wrap up and hope people come to help you.»
Broncos quarterback Bo Nix has also said Harvey’s growing reliability as a pass catcher will keep him involved in the offense. With the Raiders intent on keeping the Broncos’ passing game restricted to the short and intermediate areas of the field, 14 of Nix’s 31 completions in the game went to tight ends and running backs. Harvey had six of them.
«He can do so many different things and do them well,» Nix said. «Thought he ran the ball hard, he was hard to tackle. He’s really starting to get it, he understands things. … He’s just playing, he’s just doing his job and doing it at a high level.»
