Top daily fantasy football running back plays for Week 14

Welcome to Week 14 of the Daily Fantasy season. While season-long leagues are down to their playoff weeks, leaving the majority of those owners with no games to play, the DFS world keeps chugging right along. This article looks at some of the projected lesser-owned plays at running back who could provide huge boosts to your tournament lineups, as well as some trap plays to avoid.

It probably takes a special kind of crazy to recommend any Jets skill player after what happened on Monday night. But if we presume that the Jets will actually give an effort this week, Forte sets up as an elite play. The 49ers run defense is, by far, the worst in the NFL by orders of magnitude, and the Jets are going to want to hide Bryce Petty as much as possible. Giving Forte 30 carries is nothing new for the Jets, and if he gets that many on Sunday — a strong possibility given the increased pace of 49ers games — Forte is a lock for 100 yards and probably one or two touchdowns.

Hill went for 169 yards and a touchdown against the Browns in Week 7, and with Gio Bernard no longer splitting time in the backfield, Hill is set up for a repeat performance. With A.J. Green also ruled out, the running game is likely where the Bengals will make their living, and the Browns’ leaky run defense will be all too happy to oblige.

It doesn’t really matter how we got here, the fact remains that Rawls was supposed to be the lead back in Seattle. And now he is, and he’s played like one since getting back on the field. Last week, Rawls turned 15 carries into 106 yards and two touchdowns. For most of the season, the Packers were the stingiest run defense in the league. They’re not that anymore, and if Rawls can get closer to 20 carries, another 100-yard game is definitely within his reach.

All those pass targets that normally go to Julio Jones and Mohamed Sanu are going to have to go somewhere on Sunday, and Taylor Gabriel can only do so much. Coleman has really cooled off after his hot start. But he has a chance to be a force out of the backfield as a pass catcher with so much opportunity on the field. He’s extremely low-priced and likely not on anyone’s radar, but he should be much more involved in the offense than he has been in quite a while.

Mathews is expected to play, and when he’s gotten the carries this season, he’s made the most of them. The Redskins are nothing special against the run and the Eagles need to find a way to let rookie Carson Wentz breathe, as the freshman wall has really closed in on him. Matthews is essentially minimum priced on FanDuel, so if he finds the end zone, he is going to crush value while opening up the rest of the roster to some high-priced options.

Miller’s price has dropped to $5,100 on DraftKings, which should tell you why spending $7,200 here is a really bad idea. That, and the fact that he has 79 total rushing yards over his past two games. Not pretty.

The Jets do very few things well, and none at all on Monday night against the Colts. But when they actually decide to try, they are an excellent run defense. That doesn’t set up well for Hyde, who could possibly succeed as a pass catcher. But he’s too risky to play this week.