3 Daily Fantasy Football Players to Avoid in Week 15
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.
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 who aren't on anyone's radar. I'm trying to avoid that. I want this piece to be useful.
Here are some players I'm fading on this Sunday's main slate.
Joe Mixon, RB, Bengals ($8,100)
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been good against the run for a few years, and it's no different this season. That has me off Joe Mixon this weekend.
Tampa Bay has allowed 17.5 FanDuel points per game to the running back position, the seventh-fewest. They've been particularly stingy when it comes to running backs in the passing game, giving up the fewest receiving yards to backs as well as the fourth-fewest catches.
On top of that, I'm concerned about Mixon's role. He played only 58% of the snaps last week with Samaje Perine seeing a 43% snap rate. It was Mixon's first game back from injury, so there's a chance his snap rate rises this week. At the same time, Perine did well in Mixon's absence, so maybe Perine is going to be pretty involved the rest of the way.
Our model projects Mixon for a solid 14.8 FanDuel points, which ranks sixth at running back on this main slate. But of the nine highest-projected running backs, Mixon has the worst point-per-dollar value, according to our numbers.
Chris Godwin, WR, Buccaneers ($7,000)
On the flip side of that game, Chris Godwin has a difficult matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Cincy's defense has been better than expected this season. Our schedule-adjusted metrics rank them 10th overall in defense and 9th against the pass. The Bengals have limited wideouts to 23.8 FanDuel points per game, the sixth-fewest.
Godwin has become the apple of Tom Brady's eye, but outside of a big day against the Cleveland Browns, it hasn't amounted to much. Over the last seven games, Godwin has been targeted 11.0 times per game but has topped 75 receiving yards only once.
With Godwin in a difficult matchup -- even with Cincy's secondary banged up -- and Brady running on fumes, Godwin is a fade for me. Of the 15 highest-salaried and healthy receivers, Godwin is the third-worst point-per-dollar value, per our model. We project him to score 9.7 FanDuel points.
JuJu Smith-Schuster, WR, Chiefs ($7,300)
Per usual, the Kansas City Chiefs are one of the offenses we want exposure to as they carry a slate-leading 31.75-point implied total into their clash with the Houston Texans. But outside of Travis Kelce, it's hard to feel all that great about any of KC's skill guys -- especially their receivers. I'm not into JuJu Smith-Schuster at this salary.
Smith-Schuster has seen four or fewer targets in three of the last four games. Kansas City was a big favorite in two of his low-target games in that span, and that's the case this week as they're 14.0-point favorites over Houston. The game script should favor the Chiefs' ground game, and Houston has been a run-funnel D anyway.
Between the Texans' opponents usually not needing to pass that much and Houston having quality corners, the Texans have been tough against receivers, holding them to the fifth-fewest FanDuel points per game (23.0).
I much prefer Jerry Jeudy ($7,400), DeVonta Smith ($7,200) and Chris Olave ($7,100) in this salary range.
