Mile High Report
The Denver Broncos now have two games this season without JK Dobbins as the lead RB. In those games the Broncos faced the 17th ranked rushing defense and the 27th ranked rushing defense and averaged 3.4 yards per carry, which would be the worst average in the league for the whole season. Dobbins was averaging 5.0 yards per carry and he had a run success rate of 53.6%. A successful rush gains least 40% of yards required on 1st down, 60% of yards required on 2nd down, and 100% on 3rd or 4th down. Denominator is rushing attempts.
For the season RJ Harvey is averaging 3.8 yards per carry and has a success rate of 39.2%. Jaleel McLaughlin has is averaging 3.3 yards per carry and has a success rate of 46.2%.
In the first ten games of the season (with Dobbins) the Broncos were averaging 5.5 yards per carry on first down. In the last two games, the Broncos have gotten 2.8 (KC) and 3.5 (WAS) yards per carry on first down. The 2.8 yards per carry on first down was the worst against any team so far this season for the Broncos. The inability to run on first down has meant lots of 3rd and long plays over the last two games. As always kneel downs have been removed.
The Broncos have gotten 4.0 yards per carry on second down runs this season and 3.5 on 3rd and 4th down runs.
Since most of these were runs on first and 10, they need to gain 4 yards to be considered a successful run. That’s 10 of 25 successful runs on first down over the last two games. That’s a 40% success rate, with two of those 10 successful first down runs coming from a Bo Nix scramble and Marvin Mims jet sweep.
Some of the problem comes from RJ Harvey still thinking like he is playing against FIU or Memphis where he could always could outside and gain plenty of yards. He needs to learn to follow his blockers or he is going to keep leaving yards on the field like he did against the Commanders.
Another problem with the Bronco run game minus Dobbins is the inability to run through arm tackles. Both Harvey and McLaughlin are smaller backs (203 and 187 lbs) and neither can run through NFL arm tackles, which is something that Dobbins excelled at. Dobbins had 9 broken tackles in the run game. Harvey and McLaughlin have combined for zero. This plays out in the YAC/att. Dobbins 2.4 was one of the best in the league where RJ and Jaleel have gotten 1.9 and 1.4 so far this season. Tyler Badie has 3.0, but he has two carries so the sample size is tiny.
The Bronco OL has been quite good in run blocking so far this season. Since Harvey is now the lead RB, he just needs to unlearn some of the bad habits he learned in college. Trust the blocking and...
