With most of the Kansas City Chiefs free agency moves now behind them, fans are turning their full attention towards the 2025 NFL Draft.

The draft is now just one month away and with four picks in the top 100, the Chiefs are poised to add some quality players to their roster. One of the deepest positions in this draft class is running back. Despite their recent moves at the position, the Chiefs don’t have any longterm solutions at running back and would be wise to take advantage of this talented pool of prospects.

Thus far I have already done scouting reports on Ashton Jeanty, TreVeyon Henderson, Kaleb Johnson, Cam Skattebo, DJ Giddens, and Dylan Sampson. If you are interested in any of those prospects and haven’t checked out their profiles yet, I encourage you to do so. Today we are going to take a look at UCF running back RJ Harvey.

Harvey originally went to Virginia out of high school as a duel-threat quarterback, but ended up transferring to UCF and switching to running back. He has been UCF’s primary running back the past two seasons, putting up almost 3,000 yards rushing and 42 total touchdowns during those two seasons. He ended his college career with an impressive 6.5 career yards per attempt average.

RJ Harvey – 2025 NFL Draft Scouting Report

Age: 24 (when drafted)

Height: 5’8″ (official)

Weight: 205 (official)

RJ Harvey’s Weaknesses

Before we get into what Harvey does well, he does have a couple of strikes against him that we should get out in the open. First, Harvey is one of the oldest prospects in this draft class. That’s relevant for two reasons.

First, at a position where second contracts are already rare, it makes it that much more unlikely that whatever team drafts Harvey will be paying him a second contract, even if he plays well. Second, Harvey’s success the last two seasons came as a 22 and 23-year-old that was sometimes playing against players still in their teens.

Harvey’s other weakness is similar to what I recently wrote about Tennessee’s Dylan Sampson, that he is an undersized early-down back. Yes, he has some pass catching upside (more on that in a moment), but he’s not a good pass protector and made his living in college running the football. Harvey is an older, undersized between the tackles runner that is going to need major improvement in pass protection to get on the field on third downs. That’s not a great way to get drafted early at running back in today’s NFL.

My final ding on Harvey is actually tied to one of his biggest strengths. Sometimes he hunts the big play a little too much. We’ll talk about his ability to break big runs in a second, but there are times where he hesitates a little too long looking for an opening that isn’t there or tries to bounce a play outside when he should have taken the easy yards that were there in front of him.

RJ Harvey’s Strengths

Harvey greatest strength is that he is a big run waiting to happen. While it is fair to criticize him for hunting the big play a little too often, the overall payoff is there. You can see in the chart from Steven Patton that Harvey was one of the most explosive backs in college football last season and that his testing numbers back up the fact that he has some of the best burst in this draft class.

The “Burst Composite” in the graph linked above combines the vertical and broad jump numbers that the prospect put up. Those have long been associated with the explosiveness that a back has. In addition to putting up good jump numbers, Harvey ran a 4.4 forty which is one of the better times in this draft class.

His tape absolutely backs that up as well. Harvey has one super power and that is that he can hit his turbo boost immediately coming out of a quick juke or sidestep. His top speed is good, but it’s that burst right out of a break that makes him special. He’ll set up a defender, sidestep him and hit the afterburners and he’s instantly 10 yards downfield. Go watch any game and you’ll see him do it multiple times. His highlight reels show him doing this again and again.

Harvey’s short stature means that he’s a powerful 205 pounds with big legs that give him great contact balance. That allows him to keep his momentum if defenders don’t get a clean wrap-up on him and then he can hit that burst to leave them behind. His vision is good, but like I said earlier, he can sometimes trust himself to find something better when he should have just taken the 2-3 yards that were there. Still, his vision is a plus attribute and this isn’t a guy that just plows into the pile.

Besides their stature and run-first skillset, another similarity that Harvey shares with Dylan Sampson is that he ran a lot of inside zone in college. Like I said in Sampson’s profile, inside zone has been KC’s most used type of run play during the Andy Reid/Patrick Mahomes era. That could make him appealing to KC.

Finally, Harvey wasn’t a prolific pass catcher in college, only averaging about 20 receptions per season. However, he was productive on those plays, averaging about 13 yards per reception over the past two years. He displays nice hands and brought in some nice deep passes on wheel routes. So he could be a weapon in the passing game, but his pass pro simply isn’t good enough for Reid to trust him as a third down back coming out of college.

I’m a big fan of RJ Harvey. I would be fine with KC taking him as early as their late third round pick and think he would be an absolutely fantastic pick in the fourth round. I think his vision, contact balance, ability to make defenders miss, and burst would all be an upgrade over Isiah Pacheco.