NFL Week 11 Picks: Looking at RBs Sure to Lead Teams to Wins on the Ground

Three teams are primed for wins in Week 11, and it will be via the strength of their running game and not their quarterbacks that will get them there.

The Chicago Bears host the San Diego Chargers on Sunday afternoon, and once again, it will be Bears running back Matt Forte who will steal the show for his team. With 1,308 all-purpose yards on the season, Forte has accounted for 42 percent of the Bears' total offensive production.

He's just as big a threat in the passing game as he is on the ground, with 439 yards in the air adding to the already impressive 869 he's gotten on the ground. Add in four touchdowns on the year, and he's not just the Bears' most valuable player, but he's also one of the most dominant in the NFL period.

The Chargers have a weak defense this year after usually fielding one of the league's most dominant, ranking just 26th against the pass and 25th against the run, meaning that they are clearly vulnerable to Forte's numerous strengths.

Should Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers find himself able to throw the ball at will, that doesn't mean the Bears need to respond by engaging in a shootout. Instead, a heavy dose of Forte, augmented with passes to quarterback Jay Cutler's favorite receiver, Earl Bennett, should provide all the offense the team needs to defeat San Diego's soft defense.

While Forte isn't the team's main goal-line back, it's his work that gets them to the red zone to begin with. With an average of 145 yards per game, there's no doubt Forte will have yet another impressive outing.

The Jacksonville Jaguars' Maurice Jones-Drew is another workhorse back responsible for an astounding amount of his offense's yardage this season. Like Forte, Jones-Drew accounts for over 40 percent of his team's total offense, with 962 yards from scrimmage, while his team as a whole has totaled 2,352.

Jones-Drew has always had a great deal of responsibility in the Jaguars offense, but that has only increased this season, as he's had to provide both insurance and relief for rookie quarterback Blaine Gabbert, the least productive passer in the league among those who have thrown at least 75 passes this season.

This week, his team faces the Cleveland Browns, who have a terrible defense both against the run and the pass (their passing stats are skewed primarily because they've faced teams that don't pass the ball well to begin with). Their 28th-ranked rush defense will be carved up by Jones-Drew, while short checkdowns from Gabbert to the back will also produce major results. Jones-Drew is averaging nearly 95 yards rushing per game, and it's not hard to extrapolate a 100-plus yardage day for him against the weak Browns in Week 11.

Out of seemingly nowhere, the Seattle Seahawks' Marshawn Lynch has entered beast mode, with back-to-back 100-plus-yard rushing games in Weeks 9 and 10. And this week, up against the 31st-ranked St. Louis Rams run defense, he has a great opportunity to make it three in a row.

His 23 rushes for 135 yards and a score in Week 9 against the Cowboys, while extremely impressive, is less surprising than his 109 yards rushing, 58 yards receiving and touchdown he had in Week 10 against the far more defensively-superior Baltimore Ravens.

But even the Cowboys are better at defending the run than the St. Louis Rams, meaning that Sunday's matchup is going to be more than favorable for McGahee to rush for over 100 yards and lead his team to their second straight win.