Welcome to Week 18 / final week of the NFL regular season and the next edition DFS RB Coach! It was a mixed bag of a week last week, with great value plays in Justice Hill (22.2 points) and Zamir White (15.6), but bad mid-tier plays as both James Cook (5.4) and D’Andre Swift (7.6) were flops. CMC (13.1) looked like he was easily going for 30+ but an early injury derailed him as well, unfortunately. Enough about last week though, let’s look to this week. One of the biggest keys for me in the final week of the season is targeting players in must-win situations as their team won’t pull them early or look to rest players. It’s time to start putting those DraftKings and FanDuel lineups together and hit the big paydays! Let’s dive into my favorite RB plays!

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Week 18 Picks

NFL DFS RB Top Plays

Rachaad White, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

I can’t close out the regular season without using my guy Rachaad White. He has been great to me this year for DFS and I expect a monster week from him to close out the season. His streak of 10 STRAIGHT games with at least 15.9 dk points ended last week, but I see him bouncing back in a big way in Week 18. This is a must-win game for the Bucs to make the playoffs, so they aren’t going to give White any shortage of usage. He faced the Panthers earlier this year and scored 19.6 dk points and I expect at least that again as this is a great matchup, ranking in the top-5 for running backs. I would be surprised if we don’t get at least 20+ from the second-year back to close out the regular season. 

 

NFL DFS RB Mid-Tier Plays

Aaron Jones, Green Bay Packers

For the Packers this week is simple, win and you’re in the playoffs. Which means no holds barred in this game for their players and exactly what we like to see for someone like Jones. Jones has been playing a lot better lately too, scoring 17.5 and 17.0 dk points over his last two games; he had only scored over 11 points twice in his first nine games, so this is a huge positive sign of late. He has also racked up over 120 rushing in BOTH of the last two games while averaging 6.0 YPC. The Bears are a good matchup for running backs this season, ranking in the top-10, and I expect Jones to produce another strong week to end the regular season. 

James Conner, Arizona Cardinals

Conner is on a tear right now, scoring 25.5, 17.9, 22.2, and 29.3 dk points over his last four games. He has had at least 17 touches in all four of those games and scored at least once in each game (six total touchdowns in that span). The Cardinals have nothing to play for, which scares me a bit and could limit his usage little, but I think we still see him get the bulk of the work and I am willing to roll the dice here a bit with Conner. This matchup against the Seahawks ranks as a top-3 matchup in the league for running backs this season and I expect Conner to have another big game (as long as enough volume is there). 

Zamir White, Las Vegas Raiders

This of course depends on the status of Josh Jacobs, but with him being ruled out pretty early last week and with the Raiders having nothing to play for as they’ve been eliminated from playoff contention, I really don’t see why they would play Jacobs this week if he is still dealing with injury in any capacity. For that reason, I expect White to start again this week and continue to show what he can bring to the table. He has been rock solid as the starter thus far, scoring 17.5, 17.5, and 15.6 dk points over his three games as the lead back. He has seen heavy volume as well, averaging 22.3 touches per game as the starter. He Broncos rank as the second best matchup in the league for running backs, so this is a great spot to use White. 

 

NFL DFS RB Value Plays

Jaleel McLaughlin, Denver Broncos

McLaughlin has been outplaying Javonte Williams lately and has been getting more work. Over the last two games, McLaughlin has 14 carries for 81 yards and has caught 7 passes on 8 targets for 48 yards. In comparison, Williams has rushed 26 times just 65 yards over the last two games while catching 6 passes for 12 yards. Williams hasn’t managed to average 4.0 or more YPC in NINE weeks and really has just looked very unimpressive. I expect the Broncos to take an even further and creative look at the rookie back in this final game of the season as it is a meaningless game for the Broncos. At this cheap of a price tag, it’s worth a shot. 

 

NFL DFS RB Fades

Jerome Ford and Kareem Hunt, Cleveland Browns

The Browns are locked into the 5th seed in the AFC no matter what happens this week, so this game is completely irrelevant to them. That means they have no reason to play Ford at all, so even if he is active, I wouldn’t expect him to see much work outside of maybe a couple tune-up carries. If he ends up being completely inactive, you can move Kareem Hunt right into this fade section in his place, but I wouldn’t play either of them this week regardless. I bet we see 3rd string back, Pierre Strong Jr, see a season-high in carries this week and if I were going to play any Browns back, it would be him.