Week 14 Fantasy Football Defensive Matchup Exploitation: RB

Run defenses have been very consistent this season and, for the most part, anyone that has run into the Cardinals, Jets, and Ravens has really struggled. Last week, LeSean McCoy was held to fewer than 80 rushing yards against the Cards. This week, Zac Stacy gets the unfortunate matchup.

Stacy has been very good but the Cards have stopped Shady, Maurice Jones-Drew, Ben Tate, Steven Jackson, Carolina’s backfield, Doug Martin, Reggie Bush, and New Orleans’ backfield this season, only allowing more than 80 rushing yards to two players – once to Marshawn Lynch and once to Frank Gore. I would stay away from Stacy, as well as Rashad Jennings against a Jets defense that doesn’t do much else except eviscerate the run. Adrian Peterson is always a must-start but he could end up limited by the Ravens tough defense.

The same goes for LeSean McCoy. It’s not a great matchup but he is going to get plenty of touches and has as high an upside as anyone in the league. On the other hand, I’d stay away from anyone in New Orleans’ backfield, Indy’s backfield, and Bobby Rainey.

Frank Gore was held to just 16 rushing yards and 14 receiving yards the last time he faced Seattle so he’s a dangerous start as well.

The Bucs have not been nearly as good against the run lately as they were early on so I would roll with either Bills running back (C.J. has finally come on of late). The Giants have been tough against the run but Danny Woodhead is a game changer and I’d keep him in the lineup if you usually start him.

Chris Ivory is a bit banged up and splitting more touches with Bilal Powell so it’s tough to start either of them, especially considering the Jets offense does nothing but go three-and-out.

Andre Brown is a must-start despite the unfavorable matchup, the Giants are using him a lot and he scored two touchdowns last week.

It’s tough to start anyone out of the Pats backfield but Shane Vereen is a solid PPR option regardless of matchup.

On the favorable side, Matt Forte, Knowshon Moreno, DeMarco Murray, LeVeon Bell (if he plays), Jamaal Charles, Eddie Lacy, and Chris Johnson all have beautiful matchups. Both Andre Ellington (if healthy) and Rashard Mendenhall could be startable against a Rams team that doesn’t stop the run often and whose offense sees very little time of possession. If Ray Rice is going to finally put up a good game, it’s going to be this week against the woeful Vikings defense. Ben Tate looks like a very strong start against the Jags despite being held to just one yard on seven carries in their last meeting when the Texans offense sputtered completely out of the gate.

With Daniel Thomas out, Lamar Miller isn’t a bad start against the Steelers and the Browns running backs could be sleepers against a Pats defense that gave up 224 yards and a touchdown to Knowshon (another 57 total yards to Montee Ball) and 102 yards and three touchdowns to Tate over the last two weeks.

Let’s take a look at all of the running back matchups for Week 14.

Browse Matchups by Position: QB – RB – WR – TE

Highly Unfavorable, Unfavorable, Neutral, Slightly Favorable, Favorable

*Values based on Yahoo standard scoring.

Browse Matchups by Position: QB – RB – WR – TE

Igor Derysh

Igor Derysh is Editor-at-Large at XN Sports and has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sun-Sentinel, and FantasyPros. He has previously covered sports for COED Magazine, Fantasy Alarm, and Manwall.com. Follow @IgorDerysh !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

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