3 Daily Fantasy Football Players to Avoid in Week 8

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.

Justin Herbert, QB, Chargers

FanDuel Salary: $7,900

Josh Allen is the clear-cut top quarterback play this week, per our projections, and he'll surely see a fairly high draft percentage. After Allen, it's hard telling how draft percentages will shake out at quarterback. One guy our algorithm has among the top signal-callers who I'll be staying away from is Justin Herbert.

While the 49.5-point total in the Los Angeles Chargers-New England Patriots game is tied for the slate's second-highest mark, this is a tough spot for Herbert, who gets a Pats defense that has allowed the 8th-fewest FanDuel points per game to quarterbacks (17.5).

Last season, Herbert had a terrible game versus New England, struggling to 209 passing yards and 2 picks en route to 6.36 FanDuel points. That's still Herbert's lowest ever output.

Herbert is certainly capable of having a much better game this time around, but with guys such as Allen, Jalen Hurts, Matthew Stafford and Joe Burrow in much better spots, he is an easy fade for me this week.

Leonard Fournette, RB, Buccaneers

FanDuel Salary: $7,200

Leonard Fournette has been really good this season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and his high-volume role in a juggernaut offense makes him appealing most weeks.

Just not this one.

Fournette has to go up against the New Orleans Saints. New Orleans has been a brutal matchup for running backs this year, limiting them to 16.3 FanDuel points per game, the 3rd-fewest. They're allowing a paltry 55.5 rushing yards per game to the position.

This profiles as a game in which Tampa Bay leans heavily on Tom Brady -- more so than usual -- and while Fournette is useful in the passing game, the upside just isn't there.

Our model projects him for 12.9 points, the fewest among the 12 highest-salaried backs.

Calvin Ridley, WR, Atlanta Falcons

FanDuel Salary: $7,000

I have some concerns about Calvin Ridley.

In his return last week, Ridley played just 73% of the snaps and accounted for a 25% target share and 18% air yards share. He was horribly inefficient with his 10 targets, turning them into just 4 catches for 26 yards and saving his fantasy day with a touchdown.

For the season, Ridley has just a 21% target share and a 31% air yards share. The target share isn't what we thought Ridley would get with Julio Jones out of the picture, but the emergence of Kyle Pitts -- who recorded a 20% target share and 40% air yards share in Week 7 -- might be making Ridley the number-two option in this passing game, or at least more of a shorter-yardage weapon. That's not ideal.

Ridley has only one game with more than 11.5 FanDuel points this year and has a single-game high of 15.8 FanDuel points.

And as far as this week goes, the date with the Carolina Panthers isn't a fun one. Carolina has held wideouts to 28.6 FanDuel points per game, the 9th-fewest. The game has a blah 46.5-point total.

If you think Ridley is going to see more looks eventually, especially downfield targets, you can make a case for diving in headfirst this week with his salary at a season-low point. However, I much prefer Chris Godwin ($7,200), Robert Woods ($6,800) or Stefon Diggs ($7,300) if I'm looking in this salary range.