The Broncos are taking a far more measured route with their offense early this season, and the touch counts make that clear.
Through two games, Denver’s leader in touches is JK Dobbins, and he has just 18. That’s a very different picture from what’s happening in Detroit and Kansas City, where Jahmyr Gibbs and Kenneth Walker have each piled up 56 touches already. Those two are on pace for 476 touches, a number that would sit second all-time behind James Wilder’s 492 in 1984.
Denver, by contrast, has spread the work across the roster. The Broncos have 12 non-QBs who have logged at least one touch, and there have been 74 plays so far where Bo Nix has not been the only ball carrier. On average, that works out to 3.1 touches per game for the non-QB ball carriers.
Jonah Coleman is next on the team with 13 touches. He had a big Sunday after opening the season with zero touches against the Chiefs, and his three catches helped him lead the Broncos in touches in that game with 13.
Dobbins still handled 10 carries, but nearly all of them came before halftime, with only two in the second half. Dobbins also missed some of the game on Sunday because of hamstring tightness.
That kind of distribution stands in sharp contrast to what the Chiefs and Lions are doing. Kansas City’s second-leading touch player is Emmett Johnson with 14, which means Walker has 42 more touches than the next closest Chief.
In Detroit, Amon-Ra St. Brown has 19 touches, while the rest of the team has 25.
Take out Jared Goff’s five touches, and St. Brown and Gibbs account for 75 percent of the Lions’ touches.
For Kansas City, Walker and Johnson combine for 67 percent. That is a lot of weight on just two players.
The broader league picture makes Denver’s approach look even more cautious. Christian McCaffrey led the NFL in touches in 2025 with 413, and he also led in 2023 with 339.
Recent seasons have usually featured at least one player above 350 touches, and this year Ashton Jeanty has 54 and Jonathan Taylor has 50, putting all four of those backs on pace for more than 400. That kind of usage is hard to sustain.
History backs up the warning. James Wilder’s 492 touches in 1984 remains the NFL record.
McCaffrey is the rare modern back who has been able to return to that kind of workload, but even he has paid for it, missing most of 2020, 2021, and 2024. DeMarco Murray’s 449-touch season in 2014 was followed by a breakdown the next year.
The same pattern shows up in production. Saquon Barkley led the league in touches in 2024 with 378, then dropped from 6.0 yards per touch that season to 4.5 in 2025.
Josh Jacobs went from 5.2 yards per touch in his touch-leading season to 4.1 the next year. Derrick Henry’s 2020 touch title came with 397 touches and 5.4 yards per touch, only a shade above his career average, but he fell to 4.6 the next season.
McCaffrey remains the outlier. He has led the league in touches three times - 2019, 2023, and 2025 - and still owns a career average of 5.7 yards per touch despite more than 2,300 NFL touches. The source notes that, with the exception of Steven Jackson, every player with more than 3,200 career touches is in the Hall.
For Denver, the numbers suggest a committee is the safer play. Dobbins has 18 touches through two games, which projects to 153 over 17 games.
His career high in games is 15 as a rookie, and his career high in touches is 227 with the Chargers in 2024. Last season, he averaged 4.9 yards per touch.
Jaleel McLaughlin averaged 5.2, Tyler Badie posted 6.1 on 27 touches, and RJ Harvey averaged 4.6. Harvey led the Broncos’ running backs with 193 touches last season, and the group finished with 441 combined touches overall, with 44 percent of them going to Harvey.
The big picture for Denver is simple: the workload is being shared, and that appears intentional. Through two weeks, Dobbins and Coleman account for only 42 percent of the Broncos’ touches. In a league where extreme usage has too often led to wear and tear, Denver is choosing the lighter path.
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