Top daily fantasy football running back plays for Week 15

Welcome to Week 15 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. Here we look at some of the projected lesser-owned plays at running back that could provide huge boosts to your tournament lineups, as well as some trap plays to avoid.

No Julio Jones + the worst run defense in the league = lock and load. Freeman even did all his potential owners this week a huge favor by throwing up a huge dud last week against the Rams. That should scare a decent number of folks away from Freeman, but the week before, against another bad run defense, Freeman put up 24 FanDuel points. Frankly, Freeman should be priced right alongside David Johnson, Le’Veon Bell, and LeSean McCoy, and the fact that he’s $1,300 to $2,000 below that trio is the icing on the cake.

Blount is already having another terrific season. The Broncos have struggled against the run, and word came down on Friday that linebacker Brandon Marshall will miss this game, opening up even more running lanes for Blount to barrel through. The Patriots will want to lean on Blount and the running game to make the Denver defense susceptible to the pass, so volume should be there. And when Blount gets volume, he gets results.

Farrow was a preseason hero in DFS, and he should be very popular this weekend as he takes over for the injured Melvin Gordon. Part of Farrow’s appeal is his Woodhead-like activity in the passing game, and with Philip Rivers likely to throw it over 40 times, Farrow should be in line for five to seven receptions, especially if the Chargers fall behind early. Ronnie Hillman could be a buzzkill, but Farrow’s price is right.

Adrian Peterson says he’s playing this week, which is great news for Vikings fans and also for sharp DFS players because this news is going to scare the casual player off of McKinnon. That’s fine for us because there’s no way Peterson is going to play so much as to wipe out McKinnon’s value this week, especially with the possibility that Matt Asiata is going to miss the game. McKinnon has finally started to come on in the past three weeks and should get between 15 and 18 touches again this week. At his price, play him with confidence.

At long last, it appears Dixon has arrived as the featured back in Baltimore. He has always possessed more upside than Terrance West, and now we’re seeing it after he had 11 carries and 11 targets on Monday night. This week, he gets to face the fading Eagles at nearly the minimum salary. He is the value play of the weekend.

Mathews is going to get volume this week — or at least he should, with both Darren Sproles and Wendell Smallwood out with injuries. But will it matter? The Ravens are as tough as any team in the league against the run, and the Eagles have been terrible on the road all season. The Eagles will really struggle to move the ball and may have to abandon the run if it gets out of hand early. Yes, Mathews saves you salary, but he could easily be held to under five points.

Ware has had only one week with over 11 FanDuel points in his last six games, and the Titans defense is solid against the run. This is an Alex Smith game, not a Ware one, and plenty of value backs offer more savings than Ware.