One of the best stories of last season was the resurgence of J.K. Dobbins. Unfortunately, his season was cut short by an all-too-familiar foe: injury. Now back in Denver for another season, should fantasy football managers view Dobbins as the value he was last season? Or will the potential for increased touch competition make this a situation to avoid?
Should You Draft J.K. Dobbins in Fantasy Football?
The general perception of Dobbins’ 2025 season was that it was a nice success. Given his price in fantasy drafts, it definitely was…but perhaps not to the degree you remember.
Dobbins played well. There’s no denying that. He averaged 5.1 yards per carry and recorded 12 rushes of 15+ yards, 11th most in the league. Dobbins is definitely one of the better runners in the league. Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily pay the bills in fantasy.
Dobbins only averaged 11.6 fantasy points per game. As well as he played, his stint as a weekly fantasy starter really lasted a mere five weeks.
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A foot injury ended Dobbins’ season after Week 10. Here were his splits before that.
- Weeks 1-5: 14.5 PPG
- Weeks 6-10: 8.7 PPG
Dobbins hit double-digit fantasy points in each of his first five games, mostly because he scored in four of them. Over the next five, he didn’t score at all, resulting in just one of them cresting double digits. Therein lies the issue with Dobbins’ fantasy value. He is entirely reliant on touchdowns.
Last season, Dobbins saw a 4.3% target share. Throughout his career, he’s never been a prolific receiver. We can debate the merits of his lack of passing game usage and whether it’s a skill issue or a coaching decision issue all we want. The reality is it doesn’t matter. We can confidently project Dobbins for a very minimal passing game role. That is a tenuous fantasy profile to bet on.
Head coach Sean Payton sees a clear role for RJ Harvey. He’s the satellite back. He’s the guy in the passing game. While that obviously caps Dobbins’ upside, last year, we could safely project Dobbins for the primary rushing and goal-line role. That’s not the case anymore.
We should always have a healthy dose of skepticism about whether any Day 3 rookies will be used, but given Dobbins’ injury history plus Jonah Coleman’s size, it’s not ridiculous to think he may take some short-yardage and goal-line work. Coleman is also a capable receiver, which ensures Dobbins has no path to a passing-down role even if Harvey were to get hurt.
As talented as Dobbins may be, he is very much a better real-life player than a fantasy type of player.
Dobbins’ Redraft Fantasy Football Value
Last season, Dobbins was a great value going behind Harvey despite the fact that he was the starter (although, to be fair, the fantasy community did not necessarily believe that would be the case at the time). This year, their ADPs are much closer to Dobbins at RB34, a mere one spot behind Harvey.
There are plenty of issues with Harvey’s profile as well, but you can paint a path to upside. It’s much more difficult to do that with Dobbins.
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Last year, Dobbins finished just outside the top 24 running backs. If you get borderline RB2 production from a low RB3, that’s definitely a positive return on investment. But that really feels like Dobbins’ ceiling. That’s why he’s so low in my rankings down at RB43.
Dobbins will almost certainly outperform his ADP. But that’s not the threshold for whether he’s a worthwhile pick at cost. The reality is that several running backs going around him possess more upside and a clearer path to doing so. As a result, Dobbins is not someone fantasy managers should target unless he falls well below ADP.
Dobbins’ Dynasty Fantasy Football Value
As shaky a bet as Dobbins is in redraft, it’s even worse in dynasty. The story of Dobbins’ career is definitely a whole lot different if he hadn’t suffered three devastating lower-body injuries. But we can’t make those injuries go away. They happened, and we have to value Dobbins based on the player he is now.
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Dobbins has done a tremendous job overcoming his injuries, but he’s never quite gotten back to his pre-injury level of play. Now, he’s 27 years old and once again playing on a one-year prove-it deal. Even if he plays well, it’s highly unlikely that a team is going to have much interest in making him a prominent member of a backfield in 2027.
Given the Broncos’ investment in Harvey and now Coleman, he’s probably not in Denver next year. In the best-case scenario, maybe he gets a role as an RB2 similar to what we expect from Isiah Pacheco in Detroit this year. At worst, he’s nothing more than a rotational depth piece who barely sees the field. There’s just very little long-term upside, which is why we have him as our dynasty RB47.
