Top daily fantasy football running back plays for Week 16

Welcome to Week 16 of the Daily Fantasy season. While season-long leagues are down to their championship 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.

The Bears’ offense has come to life under Matt Barkley, and one of the main beneficiaries has been Howard, who has four rushing touchdowns in his past three games. After watching Jonathan Stewart gash Washington on Monday night, it’s not hard to envision Howard having similar success. Howard is still priced reasonably, and hopefully the bias against rostering Bears players holds true for one more week.

Powell has exploded the past two weeks, with 54 FanDuel points combined. He did it with the run two weeks ago against San Francisco and he did it with the pass last week against Miami. The pass will probably be the weapon of choice this week against the Pats, as New York figures to be playing from behind all day. Powell is way too cheap for the kind of volume he could soak up this week and makes for a great tournament play.

Stewart is back to being the straw that stirs the drink in the Carolina offense. Cam Newton gets all the attention, and rightfully so, but Stewart is the guy who sets everything up with his tough running, and he’s had 24 and 25 carries the past two games, respectively. One game resulted in a rushing touchdown, the other in 132 yards. If he can do both in the same game — and the Falcons are more than willing to allow it — he will be a home-run play.

I’m not sure why Montgomery isn’t priced like an elite back. The man is an elite back. Is it because the Vikings have a rock-solid defense? How did they look last week? Montgomery is a dynamic performer right now and his destruction of the Bears was not a fluke. Getting Montgomery at $6,300 is FanDuel’s gift to the world.

Even with Adrian Peterson back on the field, McKinnon still managed a decent day last week in the horror show that was the Colts game. Now, Peterson is looking very iffy to make it two games in a row, and McKinnon can go back to being the main man in the backfield against a Packers run defense that is considerably more leaky than it was early in the year. McKinnon’s price reflects Peterson’s presence. In other words, he’s really underpriced.

Only one running back failed to take advantage of the league’s worst run defense this season. Guess who? Regardless, Gurley will be popular. Don’t follow the herd.

The other side of the Powell coin. For all the reasons Powell should excel against the Patriots is why Forte, who is still iffy to play at all, will probably struggle.