Thursday Night Football this week has quite the interesting RB matchup. On one side we have Knowshon Moreno who hasn’t exactly been elite, but he has received 20 carries in each of the last two weeks and more importantly has not lost the football. On the other side we have Darren McFadden likely to return from injury this week and Marcel Reece, who likely ruined a few fantasy seasons this past Sunday. While it’s hard to recommend any of them this week, with Denver’s solid run defense and Oakland’s terrible one, I would give the green light to Moreno and bench the men in black. If you’re in a PPR league, both McFadden and Reece become more intriguing options, but don’t rely on them for anything above a flex in that situation.
Come Sunday, there are all kinds of interesting matchups. If Reggie Bush’s performance against The Patriots wasn’t enough to dissuade you from starting him this week, the fact he’s playing The 49ers definitely should. Miami, however, is also quite good at protecting against the run leaving Frank Gore owners in a difficult spot. Gore is still going to get the vast majority of carries so benching him might be a bit extreme, but if you have other solid options, Gore should be dropped down a bit in your own personal rankings.
There are also better fantasy matchups on Sunday. The Titans take on The Colts in Indianapolis this week and that should certainly give Chris Johnson a chance to get back on his feet after the Houston game. Vick Ballard may still be sharing the load a bit when The Colts’ offense takes the field, but he’s still a solid fantasy play against The Titans. Both have a better than average chance of scoring this week and both should be in your starting lineups.
Bryce Brown owners who were lucky enough to grab him after McCoy went down can feel free to let it ride this Sunday when The Eagles travel to Tampa Bay. With Nick Foles named the starter for the rest of the season, The Eagles are clearly content to work on rebuilding for next year and why risk McCoy’s health when Brown is doing so well without him? Averaging 6.5 yards per carry, Brown should have another great week. Luckily, the same can also be said for Doug Martin who was a bit of a disappointment last weekend, but should turn things around nicely against an Eagles defense that will pretty much let opposing teams do whatever they want these days.
It always comes down to Monday night though and that’s somewhat bad news for Stevan Ridley owners. Ridley has a TD in each of his last five games, but that will likely change this week against Houston. Arian Foster will be just fine as usual, but Ridley should struggle a bit in this game against a team that held Chris Johnson to 51 rushing yards, and that’s after he started being good again.
