The San Francisco 49ers and Pittsburgh Steelers will battle in Week 1 of the NFL season. With fantasy football stars on both sides of the ball, which ones should you feature in your starting lineups this week?
Want to see more fantasy players that you should consider starting this week? Make sure to check out PFN’s Consensus Rankings and Fantasy Analyst Kyle Soppe’s Week 1 Cheat Sheet!
San Francisco 49ers at Pittsburgh Steelers
- Spread: 49ers -2
- Total: 41.5
- 49ers Team Implied Points: 21.75
- Steelers Team Implied Points: 19.75
Quarterbacks
Brock Purdy: Purdy is going to be an interesting bye-week filler when the time comes, but even in a reasonable matchup, he’s well outside of the fantasy starter tier in standard league formats. That said, the low-aDOT, high-YAC attack (under 10 air yards on 73.3% of Purdy’s passes last season) of this team gives Purdy enough of a fantasy floor to be a consistent QB2 for leagues that require as much.
Kenny Pickett: Am I on board with a Year 2 breakout? To a degree, I am. Do I think it starts in Week 1 against this defense? I do not. Pickett’s next game with multiple touchdown passes will be his first, and the Niners allowed 2+ TD tosses in just three of their 13 victories a season ago.
Running Backs
Christian McCaffrey: It’s been 284 days since the last time CMC played in a professional football game and did not score a touchdown. His numbers are just crazy, so I’ll never pass up the opportunity to share!
Eli Mitchell: There is some hope that Mitchell offers Flex potential with time, but I’m not opening the season with him projecting for enough touches to matter. Check back in with me in a month as injuries happen and bye weeks begin to pop up.
Najee Harris: You drafted Harris as a starter, so I understand why benching him, or even considering it, is tough to wrap your mind around. But it might well be the play against the top run defense from a season ago (league-low 3.3 yards per carry allowed to the position) and a team that held onto the ball for nearly 32 minutes per game (third highest).
Harris’ next run of more than 20 yards in September will be his first as a pro, and his 80 career carries during the month have yielded just 251 yards (3.1 yards per pop) and one score.
That said, the Steelers play three below-average run defenses after this (including two of the five worst in terms of RB yards per carry from 2022), so sending a trade offer to a frustrated Harris manager could be in play. Harris isn’t a top-24 RB to open the season.
Jaylen Warren: I do believe that this could turn into a committee situation in short order, but this isn’t the spot to get cute. Warren ranks closer to RB40 than RB30 for me this week, behind a handful of secondary backs in better matchups.
Wide Receivers
Deebo Samuel: The 49ers are my least favorite team to evaluate. I’m always going to be straight with you, and I hate doing them. They have three elite pass catchers in an offense that cannot support three on a weekly basis. That, of course, is maddening for fantasy managers and even more so for those of us who are trying to lend valuable insight.
Everything I just said is true. And yet, I have a starting rank attached to both of these receivers and Kittle. What could go wrong? Something might, but the numbers back starting both of these WRs with confidence.
For Samuel, I have my concerns long-term, but there’s no denying his usage when fully healthy. Over the first month of last season, he averaged 11.6 opportunities per game, including 15 in the Week 1 loss at Chicago. He’s a fine WR2 this week that carries a fair share of risk/reward to his profile.
Brandon Aiyuk: The Steelers were the fourth-worst defense at preventing YAC to receivers last season and also allowed the second-most yards per completion to the slot. In other words, every target Samuel or Aiyuk sees is going to have a high expected fantasy point total attached to it.
The overall volume of this offense is always a concern, but when the quality of the targets is this high, the risk is worth the potential reward. I have Aiyuk just inside my 30 at the position, making him a Flex option in most formats.
Diontae Johnson: The 49ers boasted the league’s best scoring defense a season ago, thanks in part to their offense’s ability to stay on the field (league-low 14% of drives ended after three plays).
That said, they had an opponent completion rate that was worse than the league average, pointing me to this being a Johnson week in PPR formats. With an implied team total under 20 points, I’m not expecting fireworks, but Johnson’s targets are the type that San Francisco is willing to allow.
George Pickens: I’m all-in on a Pickens breakout this season, though not all breakouts begin with a proof of concept (through Halloween last season, Christian Watson had more yardage lost in drops than he did on receptions). Pickens is on the outside looking in at my top 35 at the position this week.
Allen Robinson: Robinson’s usage is something to monitor more than it is to invest in at the moment. Keep him on your radar — at 30 years old, there still might be football left in him as a part of an offense that is moving in a positive direction.
Tight Ends
George Kittle: I feel reasonably good about two things here: San Francisco is going to be a road favorite, and Kittle will see more than three targets. Do you agree? In Kittle’s past 10 games in such spots, he’s averaging a tick over 17.8 half-PPR points per game … or, you know, 0.8 more PPG than Kelce averaged last season.
I wasn’t in on Kittle this draft season at his price compared to others in the non-Kelce tier at the position, but he should provide a nice return on investment this week and has my attention in DFS to offset my lack of season-long exposure.
MORE: Fantasy Start/Sit Tool
Pat Freiermuth: If you drafted Patty Football, I think you’ll be fine in the long run, and I like it as a cheap way to get exposure to a Pickett breakout, but I wouldn’t count on him for a big Week 1. There’s not much you can do about it — the waiver wire isn’t pretty — so you are just going to have to push through it and potentially take on some risk at your Flex spot.
Last season, the Niners were among the top 10 in limiting the tight end position in yards per catch, yards after the catch, and touchdown rate. He’s a DFS no-go for me, though in redraft, you probably aren’t able to pivot.