3 Daily Fantasy Football Players to Avoid in Week 14

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 comes with the territory of doing a piece like this one -- unless I'm 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.

Dak Prescott, QB, Cowboys

FanDuel Salary: $8,100

In most games this year, Dak Prescott has found one way or another to get there, and he usually ends up with a solid fantasy output. He's averaged 20.2 FanDuel points per game for the season and has scored at least 19.8 FanDuel points in eight of 11 starts. That's not bad at all.

But Prescott has been in a funk lately, producing 12.22, 25.3, and 4.64 FanDuel points across his past three. Both his floor and ceiling are lower than usual this season due to a downtick in rushing, which has been on full display of late as he's run a combined four times for zero yards over the last three games.

In 2021, he's averaging 3.0 carries and 8.3 rushing yards per game. Coming into the year, he had averaged 5.1 rushes and 19.0 yards for his career. Dak hasn't run it more than three times in a game since Week 4, and he's attempted more than four carries in only one outing this year.

Earlier this campaign, a matchup with the Washington Football Team team would've been one we wanted to attack, but the WFT defense has been much better of late. They've held the Las Vegas Raiders and Seattle Seahawks to 15 points apiece the past two weeks. Earlier in November, they limited Tom Brady to 220 passing yards while keeping the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to 19 points.

Even on a slate that isn't amazing for signal-callers, Dak checks in just seventh at the position, according to our algorithm. With Patrick Mahomes ($8,500), Josh Allen ($8,800) and Brady ($8,200) offering higher ceilings at the top end of the quarterback pool as well as lower-salaried options like Russell Wilson ($7,500), Cam Newton ($7,400) and Lamar Jackson ($7,900) in nice spots, Prescott is someone I'll stay away from this week.

Nick Chubb, RB, Browns

FanDuel Salary: $7,500

Nick Chubb is a guy I have a hard time playing in DFS. It's not due to his ability -- Chubb is super talented -- but his role is lacking compared to the usage of other backs who are usually in his salary range. That's the case on this slate.

Chubb has yet to play more than 57% of the snaps in a game this year. Even when he got three games sans Kareem Hunt, Chubb logged snap rates of 56%, 56%, and 57% in them. Meh. And with Hunt back last time out, Chubb was in on only 50% of the Cleveland Browns' plays.

This is how Cleveland utilizes Chubb, and with a tough game on top against the Baltimore Ravens, I won't be turning to him.

For the year, Baltimore has allowed the seventh-fewest FanDuel points per game to running backs (18.9). The Ravens haven't given up a rushing tuddie since Week 7. When these two teams met in Week 12, Baltimore limited Chubb to 16 rushing yards on eight carries while Chubb added two grabs for 23 receiving yards. In games in which Hunt has played in 2021, Chubb hasn't had more than two targets in a single one.

While Cleveland is a 2.5-point home favorite, which could lead to more carries for Chubb, the game has an ugly 41.5-point total.

Chubb just doesn't offer many positives this week.

Jerry Jeudy, WR, Broncos

FanDuel Salary: $6,300

There's a lot to like about Jerry Jeudy long-term, and he leads the Denver Broncos with a 19% target share in the five games since he returned from injury.

For this week, though, I worry about his volume with Denver a 9.5-point favorite at home versus the Detroit Lions.

When leading this season, the Broncos are throwing the ball just 45% of the time, per Sharp Football, which is the sixth-lowest rate in the league. This plays out in Jeudy's stats as he averages 4.5 catches and 51.3 yards per game this year in wins, compared to 5.0 grabs and 62.5 yards per game in defeats.

And despite leading Denver in target share since his return, Jeudy has recorded just the third-most snaps among Broncos' wideouts in every single game in which he's played this year.

I'm much more into Brandon Aiyuk ($6,400) and Elijah Moore ($6,300) in Jeudy's salary range.