There were 14601 rushing plays in the regular season in 2025 and the Denver Broncos had 456 of those. Those plays gained 63618 yards (4.36 per) while the Broncos gained 2018 (4.43). However, 433 of those run plays were kneel-downs which lost 459 yards. So removing kneel-downs there were 14168 runs for 64077 yards (4.52 per). The Broncos had 18 kneel-downs for minus 18 yards, so the team had 438 runs for 2036 yards (4.65 per). It’s stupid that the NFL still counts kneel-downs as runs for negative
yards.
If you read Ross’ excellent piece on the AFCC loss, you know that the running backs left a lot of yards on the field that game (and this season). While it’s hard to quantify this, some sites have tried. PFR uses success. A successful run gains 40% of the needed yardage on 1st down, 60% of the needed yardage on 2nd down and converts on 3rd or 4th down. Jaleel McLaughlin was very successful on his 37 runs this season, JK Dobbins was good, while RJ Harvey was not.
With a minimum of 1 carry per game, here are the running backs sorted by success rate. JM was 2nd, Dobbins was 24th, Harvey was 67th of 91. It’s crazy that the Rams had the 1st and the 3rd best RBs by success rate, but it’s easy to run when you have the MVP throwing the ball. Kyren Williams was the only RB with a success rate above 60%. Jaleel’s 3.1 YBC (yards before contact per attempt) was also good – 6th best in the NFL – behind Emari Demercado, Miles Sanders, Keaton Mitchell, Blake Corum and Jahmyr Gibbs.
Dobbins was at 2.6 and Harvey at 1.9 in this stat. Generally if the OL (and TEs) are consistently run blocking well, then all runners will have a higher YBC for a team. Dobbins 2.4 yards after contact per attempt was tied for 14th. JM and RJH got 2.0 and 1.8 respectively in those metrics.
In terms of broken tackles in the run game, Dobbins got 9 (one every 17 carries), Harvey got 7 (one every 20.9 carries), and JM got 2 (one every 18.5 carries). Jonathan Taylor led the league with a total of 27 while Jerome Ford of the Browns got them the most frequently (one every 2.7 carries) – admittedly on 24 total carries. All of this data is from pro-football-reference.com
Before we get into NGS stuff, let’s talk about tight end run blocking. The Bronco tight ends were not very good at run blocking, and as Ross pointed out, it only takes one blocker getting worked by the defender to blow up a run. The Bronco tight ends were 27th in blown block percentage at 2.77% only the Falcons, Vikings, Faiders, Texans and, Chargers were worse. Bronco TEs did only commit one holding penalty in the run game. They were 20th in getting stuffed at 0.61% (3 stuffs on 469 run blocks). Adam Trautman got the majority of the TE snaps in the run game. Since he was only targeted 23 times, he was essentially a run-blocking TE, but not a very good one.
The worst offender among the Bronco TEs was, surprisingly, Marcedes Lewis, who had 3 blown blocks on 58 run blocking snaps. Adam Trautman had 8 blown blocks and 3 stuffs on 274 run blocking snaps. Krull had the highest BB% but only on 13 snaps. Nate Adkins was the only Bronco TE with no blown blocks or stuffs.
The Ravens had the most effective run blocking from TE group in the NFL with only one blown block and one stuff in the run game on 541 snaps. The Chargers had the worst and it wasn’t close. RB snaps below and above is Run Blocking snaps, not running back snaps. BB = blown blocks, H = holding penalties
Another source of individual rushing data is NFL NextGen Stats. They have a stat that tracks how many expected yards an average RB would get on a run and how a given RB performs relative to expected yards (RYOE).
Only 51 running backs qualified on NFL NGS. The best RB in the league at RYOE/att was Rhamondre Stevenson at 1.36 yards per attempt. JK Dobbins was 4th at 1.08. RJH was 48th at -0.64. Only Alvin Kamara, Bucky Irving and Michael Carter were worse among qualifiers.
One of the other things the NGS tracks is what they call effectiveness and this measures how north/south the RB is. At 4.85, RJH was the worst in the league. Meaning that he ran east/west often to gain a few yards north/south. This is tied to TLOS (average time to the line of scrimmage). Harvey’s 3.07 seconds was the second highest in the NFL (tied with Zach Charbonnet), only Kenneth Walker III spent more time on average BLOS at 3.19 seconds.
Another thing that NGS tracks is percentage of runs facing an eight-man box. Quinshon Judkins had the highest at 45.2%, but JK Dobbins was 3rd at 36.6% and RJH was 6th at 32.9%. So many DC’s who faced the Broncos, either knew we were going to run or were trying to force Bo Nix to beat them by stacking the LOS. Alvin Kamara had the lowest percentage of stacked boxes at 10.7. Despite that, he left more yards on the field per rushing attempt than RJH.
The Bronco RB room needs an improvement next season. Jaleel was the best of the bunch, but he had a tiny sample size with 37 rushing attempts. He doesn’t have the size to be the primary RB though. Dobbins is a free agent and due to his age and health, he should not be relied upon as the primary back in 2026, if he is brought back. Dobbins has never appeared in 16 games in an NFL season and now has appeared in 47 games in 5 seasons or 9 games per season. He’ll turn 28 next season, which is ancient for an NFL RB.
I’ll discuss the Bronco TE room in another post later on this off-season.
