5 sleeper RBs with sneaky Touchdown upside in NFL Week 1

When NFL betting officially kicks off with Week 1, touchdown props are sure to be one of the most popular wagers across sportsbooks and prediction markets.

From NFL parlays featuring touchdowns to NFL player props with an edge, the allure of one of the most exciting plays in sports is hard to ignore, and with that, the superstar players everyone wants to see find the end zone.

Players like Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs face little competition for touches and feature among the most likely players on the slate to score, but in less top-heavy backfields, there's always a surprise player lurking, waiting for their chance to vulture a touchdown.

Using Dimers' anytime touchdown probabilities and NFL player projections, here are the backup and committee backs most likely to complicate same-game parlays and player-prop bets in Week 1, ranked from highest to lowest touchdown probability.

1. Mike Washington Jr., Raiders (39.7% anytime TD)

Las Vegas heads into Week 1 as a 59.7% Dimers probability favorite to beat Miami at home, and that game script could mean goal-line work for both backs.

Ashton Jeanty is unquestionably the lead runner, but his own 49.4% anytime-TD number isn't the runaway separation you'd expect between a top-10 draft pick and his rookie backup, but that's the gap our model sees.

Mike Washington, a fourth-round pick out of Arkansas whom the Raiders traded up to get, ran for nearly 3,000 yards and scored 29 total touchdowns across his college career, including back-to-back seasons with 9 touchdowns.

At 6-foot-2, 228 pounds and a blazing 4.33-second 40, he has all the tools to disrupt the game. Projected for 19.9 rushing yards, we aren't anticipating major volume for Washington, but he has the highest TD probability out of any RB2 this week.

Dimers' NFL player projections.

2. Chris Rodriguez Jr., Jaguars (33.0% anytime TD)

Jacksonville's backfield in a post-Travis Etienne world is muddled to say the least.

Chris Rodriguez Jr., who spent three seasons in Washington, peaking in 2025 with 500 yards and 6 touchdowns on 112 carries (7 starts in 13 games), signed a two-year, $10 million deal with Jacksonville in March.

Incumbent RB Bhayshul Tuten, a fourth-round pick who flashed some upside as a rookie (83 carries for 307 yards and 5 rushing touchdowns, plus 2 receiving scores), currently sits ahead of him at 40.9% anytime TD and a 54.1-yard rushing projection, but Rodriguez isn't far off at 37.5 yards and a 33.0% TD probability.

With LeQuint Allen also in the mix, but a distant third at 9.1% to score, the lead back role looks up for grabs between Tuten and Rodriguez, the latter of which may have an inside track with HC Liam Coen formerly coaching him during his breakout college season at Kentucky.

3. RJ Harvey, Broncos (30.9% anytime TD)

Denver may have the murkiest committee in football, and Sean Payton has done little this offseason to suggest he'll simplify it.

RJ Harvey, Denver's 2025 second-round pick out of UCF, flashed late as a rookie with 12 touchdowns on fewer than 200 touches and a stretch of 17.0 fantasy points per game once J.K. Dobbins got hurt, but with Dobbins healthy and third-round rookie Jonah Coleman added to the room, Payton looks geared up for a full-committee approach.

Dobbins projects for a clearly superior workload (53.2 rushing yards to Harvey's 23.6), yet Dimers only has him roughly six percentage points higher than Harvey's 30.9% for an anytime score, and Coleman (10.8%) and even Tyler Badie (7.2%) are longshots but note exactly projected to be non-factors.

Harvey is one of two RBs on this list who get a betting edge to score, with DraftKings pricing Harvey at +285 against a Dimers fair line of +225, a real market inefficiency for a Week 1 trip to Kansas City.

Our value on RJ Harvey from the Dimers App.

4. Kyle Monangai, Bears (29.1% anytime TD)

Chicago may have the most 1A/1B setup of this group in theory, but Dimers still projects a real split at 72.9 rushing yards for D'Andre Swift compared to just 34.0 for second-year RB Kyle Monangai.

That reflects their volume gap from 2025: Swift carried it 223 times to Monangai's 169 as a seventh-round rookie out of Rutgers, and Swift more than doubled Monangai's total touchdown production, 10 to 5.

HC Ben Johnson has been explicit that he wants competition and complementary depth in that room rather than a bell-cow, and Chicago's Week 1 trip to Carolina sets up well for exactly that kind of workload; the Panthers allowed roughly 1.2 rushing touchdowns per game in 2025, among the league's worst marks.

Given that context, an "RB2" pushing 30% to find the end zone lands Monangai at fourth in this list.

5. Malik Davis, Cowboys (15.0% anytime TD)

Now entering his fourth season in Dallas after going undrafted out of Florida in 2022, Malik Davis outlasted two of the team's more recent draft investments at the position, Phil Mafah and Jaydon Blue, to claim the clear-cut RB2 job behind Javonte Williams.

Williams projects for 78.5 rushing yards to Davis's 19.8, and a 52.0% TD probability of his own, significantly higher than Davis at 15.0%.

Davis' own track record is thin (411 career rushing yards, 3 touchdowns across 25 games) but he's shown enough in camp to keep beating out younger, more highly drafted competition, and the game script favors him finding paydirt.

Dallas is projected at 54.7% to cover as a road favorite over the Giants, whose defense allowed 1.2 rushing touchdowns per game in 2025, tied for third worst.

He's a longshot when it comes to scoring upside, but at +750 on FanDuel against a Dimers fair price of +565, Davis offers the largest gap between market price and model probability on this list.

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