3 Daily Fantasy Football Players to Avoid in Week 10

We have a lot of pieces on numberFire geared toward helping you figure out which players you should roster in your DFS contests on FanDuel, but an important aspect of the DFS process is figuring out who you shouldn't play.

Narrowing down your list of potential plays by avoiding those who are destined to underwhelm can go a long way toward helping you create winning lineups.

Zigging when the masses zag is part of giving yourself an edge in DFS, so you'll sometimes be able to make a case for using a player in this piece in an effort to be contrarian -- especially if said player is really good. Inevitably, some of the players I feature in this article will blow up and pop for a big game, but that just comes with the territory of doing a piece like this one -- unless I'm just going to tell you to avoid playing dudes like Jared Goff. I'm not going to do that. I want this piece to be useful.

Here are some players I'm avoiding this week.

Tom Brady, QB, Buccaneers

FanDuel Salary: $8,300

With the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a big favorite against a bad pass defense, I'm well aware this could backfire, but I'm not going to have much Tom Brady this week.

It's not really about Brady as much as it is the other high-end quarterback options available to us -- namely Josh Allen ($8,700), Dak Prescott ($8,100) and Justin Herbert ($8,000) -- the salaries of those quarterbacks and how great of a spot they're in.

Allen is taking on the New York Jets in what has all the makings of a bounce-back game for the Buffalo Bills after their shocking loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 9. Herbert and Prescott are in cushy matchups against the Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons, respectively, in games with huge totals.

Brady has a great matchup, too, versus the Washington Football Team. WFT's defense has allowed 25.4 FanDuel points per game to quarterbacks -- the most in the league. But what's something those three quarterbacks have that Brady doesn't? Rushing upside.

That rushing juice gives those guys a ceiling that isn't as easy for Brady to access. That's not saying he can't drop a 30-piece -- something we've seen him do this year -- but he has just one route to doing so, which is racking up a ton of passing yards with several passing tuds. Those guys can amass gaudy passing numbers as well as pick up additional points on the ground.

While you can certainly make a good case for Brady as a tourney pick since he probably won't be as popular as Herbert, Dak, and Allen, Brady projects as a worse point-per-dollar play than all three of them (by a decent margin) per our algorithm and might be without Chris Godwin, who didn't practice Wednesday or Thursday. But even if Godwin suits up, I'm just not that into Brady given the other high-upside signal-callers on the slate.

Aaron Jones, RB, Packers

FanDuel Salary: $8,200

Aaron Jones is a super talented player, but it's tough to drop $8,200 on a back who is losing a good amount of snaps and touches to someone else in his backfield.

Jones has played 63% and 66% of the snaps in the past two games. He's been held under 70% of the snaps in five of the past six games. He's had fewer than 18 total touches in five of those six outings, including games of 11 and 14 touches over the past three.

With A.J. Dillon carving out a meaningful role in this offense, it's tough to stomach Jones at $8,200 -- even in a dope matchup versus a Seattle Seahawks defense that has permitted the third-most FanDuel points per game to running backs (26.2).

In Jones' salary range, I much prefer Ezekiel Elliott (8,000) and Dalvin Cook ($8,500). We project Jones as the worst point-per-dollar play among all of the healthy backs with a salary above $7,500.

Michael Pittman, WR, Colts

FanDuel Salary: $7,200

Michael Pittman Jr. is having a year-two breakout for the Indianapolis Colts, and there's a lot to like about him long-term.

But over recent weeks, he's been propped up a bit by touchdowns and a massive outing versus the Tennessee Titans. He's got four scores over the last four games but has made more than five catches just once in that span. The exception was, of course, when he shredded the Titans for 10 catches, 86 yards, and 2 touchdowns.

For the season, Pittman has hauled in more than six passes in only two of nine games. While that's a somewhat arbitrary cutoff I set for the purpose of making my point, Pittman is fairly reliant on big plays and touchdowns for his fantasy production, and those can be volatile.

The Colts also might have T.Y. Hilton back this week. In the one full game Hilton has played this season, Pittman notched 3 targets and 2 receptions for 35 yards while Hilton caught 4 of 4 targets for 80 yards. Yes, that is a one-game sample, and, yes, it was a lopsided win over the Houston Texans in which Carson Wentz attempted just 20 passes. But it's worth at least mentioning because Indy is a 10.5-point home favorite this week over the Jaguars, so we could see a similar game unfold.

I'd be willing to overlook some of that and roster Pittman if his salary was still in the mid-to-low $6,000s. It's not.

His salary is up $700 from his last main-slate appearance and $1,500 from where it was in Week 6, putting him near the likes of Justin Jefferson ($7,500), Amari Cooper ($7,300), Mike Evans ($7,400), Keenan Allen ($7,300), Terry McLaurin ($7,100), Adam Thielen ($7,000) and Mike Williams ($6,900) -- all of whom are much more appealing in my eyes.

All in all, I'm passing on Pittman this week.