With San Francisco 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey having spent the week dealing with an oblique injury, fantasy football managers have been holding their breath when it comes to his status for Week 7. Let’s take a look at whether McCaffrey will be playing tonight and how his status impacts the 49ers’ backfield from a fantasy perspective.
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Is Christian McCaffrey Going To Play Week 7?
The latest updates we have when it comes to McCaffrey’s status in Week 7 have generally been positive. Sunday morning saw ESPN’s Adam Schefter report that McCaffrey is expected to play on Monday Night Football against the Minnesota Vikings.
“All signs point to 49ers’ RB Christian McCaffrey playing Monday night at Minnesota, despite the fact that he is listed as questionable due to an oblique injury, per sources. McCaffrey returned to practice in a limited way Saturday and said after that he feels ‘great.'”
McCaffrey hurt his oblique during last week’s game against the Cleveland Browns. He left the game before briefly returning, only to then leave the field for the remainder of the game. The good news is that an oblique injury is rarely a serious issue in terms of missing time. The average absence due to an oblique issue is between one and two games.
The extra day may have made all the difference for McCaffrey. He was listed as a non-participant on the 49ers’ injury report for both Thursday and Friday before being able to practice in a limited capacity on Saturday. However, that may also have been the planned pattern if it had been a Sunday game.
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The thing to watch out for now is McCaffrey being a late scratch if he struggles for any reason during warmups. There is always a risk that when he gets out on the field in Minnesota on Monday, he doesn’t feel right, and San Francisco decides to save him for future battles.
The final concern for fantasy managers is that McCaffrey being active is no guarantee of him seeing a full role. We could easily see him play as an emergency backup option, as we’ve previously seen with other running backs. Equally, if the 49ers open up a lead in the first half, we could see his workload reduced later in the contest.
How Should Fantasy Managers Approach McCaffrey, Jordan Mason, and Elijah Mitchell?
This game is extremely tough for fantasy managers to balance with San Francisco. For the most part, if you have McCaffrey on your roster, there’s no real question about starting him. Unless we definitively hear that he will have an extremely limited role, the risk is well and truly worth the reward of starting a player with nine touchdowns this season and 19 in 17 games with the 49ers.
The situation does not get any simpler when you consider whether to start either Jordan Mason or Elijah Mitchell. Not only do we not know how much McCaffrey will play, we don’t know how the split between Mason and Mitchell will play out.
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Mitchell returned last week from injury and had just two carries — even with McCaffrey’s absence for the second half of the game. However, back in Week 3, Mitchell touched the ball 14 times in a blowout win over the New York Giants. Now fully healthy, could he be the primary option to spell McCaffrey?
Mason has been in that role over the last two weeks, with 15 carries and one target in that span. He has put forward a good case with 96 yards and two touchdowns on those 15 carries. However, in that game against the Giants on Thursday Night Football, he was the clear third option, with just three touches to 14 for Mitchell.
In the Pro Football Network Start/Sit Optimizer, PFN’s Consensus Rankings still have McCaffrey as the player to start. His projected 16.4 points include a projection of 45 rushing yards, 4.4 receptions, and 38.4 receiving yards. Even with concerns over his health and usage levels, he’s still comfortably ahead of Mitchell (7.0 fantasy points) and Mason (6.0 fantasy points).
The key takeaway from those numbers is that if McCaffrey were a surprise inactive, Mitchell appears to be the player that PFN’s Consensus Rankings view as the next man up as the backfield leader for the San Francisco 49ers.