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Should you draft RJ Harvey or Quinshon Judkins in 2025 dynasty fantasy football rookie drafts? John breaks down the profiles, landing spots, and fantasy football outlooks for Harvey and Judkins.
Denver Broncos running back RJ Harvey and Cleveland Browns running back Quinshon Judkins are two rookie backs drafted in the second round of the 2025 NFL Draft. Judkins was selected early, at 36th overall, in a move that some might consider a bit of a reach.
Interestingly, the fantasy community was utterly blindsided by Harvey's selection at 60th overall. I was not one of them -- I've been absolutely pounding the table for Harvey since at least February. He's a fantastic prospect and absolutely deserved his pick.
I hope you listened to my Harvey propaganda for your dynasty fantasy football rookie drafts -- he's going in the first round now, and you used to be able to get him in the third or fourth! Either way, we're past that now, so let's dive into a player comparison for Judkins and Harvey and decide which is the better player to draft!
Be sure to check all of our fantasy football rankings for 2025:- 2025 fantasy football rankings
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Quinshon Judkins Fantasy Football Analysis
Judkins has the benefit of having better draft capital, of course. Personally, I'm of the opinion that he was over-drafted, but you have to consider the following euphemism -- players drafted with lower picks have to prove that they CAN play, and players drafted much higher have to prove they CAN'T play.
As to say, late-round picks often have to battle for roster spots and to move up the team's positional rankings, whereas it would be safe to assume that Judkins will likely start the year as the team's RB1, leapfrogging Jerome Ford, who currently is in the top spot on the depth chart.
Quinshon Judkins is a RB prospect in the 2025 draft class. He scored an unofficial 9.88 #RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 23 out of 1909 RB from 1987 to 2025.
Splits projected, times unofficial.https://t.co/Cr6u9LMCnK pic.twitter.com/QFXrFuG9Rb
— RAS.football (@MathBomb) March 1, 2025
It's understandable why he was selected so high. NFL teams greatly value athleticism, and Judkins' combination of size, burst, and speed is impressive. Obviously, this shows up on his tape, and he does a great job of stiff-arming defenders to gain more yards.
So it might confuse you why I'm lower on Judkins the most. But the biggest reason is that you simply can't win consistently with brute force in the NFL. Athletic testing can't accurately quantify how a player will pan out in the league, because it's about more than just running fast and being big and powerful.
The problem with Quinshon Judkins isn't his poor missed tackles forced rate.
It's that he's average or (MUCH) worse in nearly every efficiency metric when compared to his projected draft capital.
Of 52 R1-R3 RBs since 2018:
25th in MTF%
47th in YCO/A
37th in Explosive%
24th in… pic.twitter.com/JCXX1AYvTZ— Dynasty Zoltan (@DynastyZoltanFF) April 12, 2025
If playing running back was all about that, there would be no reason that Judkins' advanced efficiency metrics would be so poor. Many want to write off these types of stats as hand-waving and overthinking, but evidence shows they're important, and it doesn't take some huge study to prove so.
Forcing defenders to miss is a good thing. Creating explosive plays is good. Gaining yards after contact and above a certain amount of yards per route run in receiving situations is good, as is picking up first downs consistently and being efficient with your opportunities.
Going over Quinshon Judkins tape, I lost track of how many times I saw zero hip flexibility. Rarely tries to juke the defender even with clear space to get extra yards. Just tries to run guys over every time. Doesn't work that well in the NFL. Should be a problem. pic.twitter.com/VJmiH2GVIA
— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) March 17, 2025
It's hard to get good insight into why Judkins was so poor at doing so many important things for backs to do without digging into his tape. When you do, a lot of red flags start to pop up. For me, the biggest is that he has such unbelievably inflexible hips. He's just awful at changing his direction meaningfully at speed.
So when he builds up velocity, he struggles mightily with slamming on the brakes or making defenders miss with lateral moves. In college, it was a problem, as you can see above. Running over defenders is not a good way to gain extra yards. Most of the time, the collisions slow progress to a crawl, at which point even if the back breaks the tackle, other defenders have more time to swarm in and bring him down.
Quinshon Judkins, the bowling ball.
Looks like 5 (!) missed tackles forced for the Ohio State RB here... pic.twitter.com/6Y7MHr2Vxd
— Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom) September 21, 2024
This is a super-awesome play style when you're playing against inferior college competition. Judkins was simply too physically imposing for defenders from schools like Marshall to handle effectively. We saw this pan out exactly as you would think -- Judkins was much, much less impressive against quality competition.
Dylan Sampson absolutely destroyed every big school he played against in 2024 before his hamstring injury in his final game. Quinshon Judkins, despite playing in a committee, having more rest, and having a better offensive line, was prone to putting up stinkers pic.twitter.com/A3x7YL7SqT
— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) May 24, 2025
Do people really think this will change at the next level, where every defense is much tougher than any defense at the collegiate level? I have serious doubts. I don't have much interest in drafting Judkins, and my analysis above and the graphic directly above should show you why.
The Browns also drafted Dylan Sampson. He's smaller than Judkins, but his tape impressed me much more. He was the SEC Offensive Player of the Year, racked up enormous numbers, and regularly demolished the best quality of competition. He's now on the same team as Judkins.
If you're planning on taking a Browns rookie running back, just go with Sampson. He's much cheaper and thus much less risky. My analysis has led me to believe that he's just better than Judkins, straight up.
RJ Harvey Fantasy Football Analysis
As you can probably tell from the introduction of the article, where I discussed how much I've liked Harvey as a prospect for months, I think he'll have an excellent season in his first year with the Denver Broncos. Harvey is actually analytically pretty much the opposite of Judkins, which is great for Harvey.
He's very elusive, gains a lot of yards after contact, is excellent (despite being underutilized) as a receiver, and is an absolute explosive play machine to a ridiculous level. Athletically, while Harvey is quite a bit smaller than Judkins, he also ran a very quick 40-yard dash and has both great acceleration and long speed.
Unlike Quinshon Judkins, who often had very poor games at Ohio State against good competition, even with great run blocking, RJ Harvey just smashed every P4 team he played against in 2024. Not a bad game in his game log here, and he didn't have TreVeyon Henderson to spell him. pic.twitter.com/W5coQxT70V
— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) June 3, 2025
There are precisely ZERO red flags with Harvey's production profile. Every time he stepped on the field, he put the UCF offense on his back, finishing the season with 25 total touchdowns and a ludicrous 6.8 yards per carry. That's almost unfathomable production for a player that most fantasy managers were sure would suck in the NFL.
Harvey's tape is phenomenal. He doesn't often win by running defenders over, but that's a terrible strategy for an RB to employ consistently. Instead, he's a nightmare in the open field, often badly embarrassing defenders trying to tackle him. He also has good vision, and the quickness to bound between gaps behind the line of scrimmage to effectively choose one.
Nearly 13 minutes of highlights of new Broncos RB RJ Harveypic.twitter.com/Lsqu1GStgT
— MileHighReport (@MileHighReport) April 26, 2025
Just because the whole fantasy community, save for a few sharp and observant people who had watched Harvey play, suddenly decided that he was a great prospect after the Broncos drafted him, doesn't mean that he came out of nowhere. He was right in front of us this whole time.
One great strategy to employ in fantasy football is to STOP HELMET SCOUTING. There's way, way too much bias against players who went to certain schools that aren't as "big." It's ironic because both UCF and Arizona are in the BIG 12, yet WR Tetairoa McMillan, who went to Arizona last season, wasn't helmet-scouted.
Career Explosive Run rates from 2025 RBs
RJ Harvey: 21%
Jarquez Hunter: 18.9%
Cam Skattebo/Bhayshul Tuten: 18%
Marcus Yarns: 17.9%
Damien Martinez: 17.8% pic.twitter.com/oHfAbvtUlI— Football Insights 📊 (@fball_insights) February 20, 2025
It's just ridiculous to write off players that went to schools that weren't in the BIG 10 or SEC, and even worse, to do it so selectively. There are some concerns with Harvey's profile, of course. He's not a great pass-protector, and his size doesn't help with that.
But Broncos head coach Sean Payton drafted him to be his Joker. Do you really want to turn down an opportunity to get an elite athlete, proven stud running back in a Payton offense that's produced absolutely massive running back seasons in fantasy football? I think that's a bad idea.
The other RBs on the Broncos roster have already proven that they are awful. We saw it all last season. Accept that, and it becomes clear that Harvey will have a ton of opportunities in 2025. Make sure to draft him wherever you can, and definitely take him over Judkins.
drafting RJ Harvey everywhere now because people will actually believe “JK Dobbins” is a threat pic.twitter.com/kWxMfX2YHg
— kev mahserejian (@RotoSurgeon) June 10, 2025
As one of the OG believers in Harvey -- I was basically the only analyst in the industry calling him an elite prospect back in February and March -- I can tell you with confidence that the Dobbins signing hardly means anything. The Broncos need some help with pass-protection.
Also, there are no other backs on their roster worth giving touches to. Harvey will put up fantastic numbers. Dobbins, probably not. Either way, Dobbins' presence shouldn't affect Harvey's excellence this season.
Conclusion
Don't draft Judkins. Stay away. If you want a Browns RB, draft Sampson instead, while Harvey is a great pick.
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