The Detroit Lions will face the San Francisco 49ers in Week 17. Here’s fantasy football start-sit advice for every Lions and 49ers skill player who has the potential to make a fantasy impact during the game.
Looking for more lineup advice? Head over to our Week 17 Fantasy Start-Sit Cheat Sheet, where we cover every fantasy-relevant player in every game.
Jared Goff, QB
Jared Goff isn’t going to win the MVP, but he is certainly playing like one, and it’s finally spilling over into our world with consecutive top-five finishes. This is a potential pace-down spot against the 49ers, but efficiency has been the name of the game all season long for the Lions. That should again be the case against the NFL’s third-worst red-zone defense.
The home/road splits are still a thing for Goff, but he’s posted a passer rating north of 135 on the road three times this season. I’m not worried about that narrative and have him ranked as my QB8.
Brock Purdy, QB
Brock Purdy has thrown for 300 yards and multiple scores in two of his past three games, though asking him to do that against the Lions is a bit of a tall request.
We know this Detroit defense is banged up, but they were impressive in shutting down the Bears last week. Of course, this is a different animal, but even if you think they have some decline, there’s not a cliff awaiting.
Purdy’s struggles in the short passing game have been pronounced since Christian McCaffrey was lost for the season. He has a career completion percentage on passes thrown under 10 yards of 71.8%, but over the past two weeks, we are looking at 61.7%.
Purdy’s profile doesn’t come with much upside, and there is a risk, given the matchup. He’s sitting just outside of my top 12 this week — I’d rather go with Tua Tagovailoa in Cleveland or Bo Nix in the premier spot against the Bengals.
Jahmyr Gibbs, RB
Dan Campbell made it clear that the team trusts Jahmyr Gibbs to handle the David Montgomery role last week, even after a few failures on the doorstep. When all was said and done, Detroit’s bell cow was trusted with 27 touches. I think we might see more of that over the next 1.5 months as this team looks to get to New Orleans.
Gibbs now has six top-10 finishes this season and will be a first-round pick next season. He could prove to be the piece that is most common on championship rosters this season – make sure to check back this offseason as we will work hard to position you to get “the next” version of him.
Isaac Guerendo, RB
A hamstring injury cost Isaac Guerendo last week and could well end his season, given that the team has nothing left to play for.
That said, we’ve seen teams make questionable health decisions like this in the past, and if we get sparkling health reports, you’d almost be obligated to Flex this role from a process standpoint.
San Francisco’s bell-cow role, percentage of RB touches:
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- Weeks 1-2, Jordan Mason: 87.5%
- Weeks 10-11, Christian McCaffrey: 89.3%
- Weeks 14-15, Guerendo (minus Q4 of Week 14): 94.4%
- Week 16, Patrick Taylor Jr.: 81.8%%
Patrick Taylor didn’t have much of a chance to impress last week, making it even more likely that the feature role would be Guerendo’s if he is fit enough for it.
Keep tabs. I’m benching Guerendo right now and pivoting should things flip.
Patrick Taylor Jr., RB
Patrick Taylor Jr. took over for Isaac Guerendo last week in Miami and was, you guessed it, a fully featured back.
Well, sort of. He got every running back carry for San Francisco, but that only amounted to eight carries and a 44.4% share of San Francisco’s total number of attempts.
I think we can pretty safely back away from this backfield and feel good about it. The 49ers don’t have anything left to play for, and we don’t have much in the way of clarity on Guerendo’s hamstring, making this an impossible situation to project with confidence as they prepare to face the second-best run defense by success rate, in the league.
The starting 49ers RB will be a low-end Flex option for me, no matter who it is. I don’t think this team has much success in this spot. If they do, I expect it to come in exotic packages that involve Deebo Samuel Sr. in space or Brock Purdy on the move, neither of which helps this running game in a major way.
Jauan Jennings, WR
The 49ers made Week 16 the George Kittle and Deebo Samuel Sr. show, which I think has a decent chance to sustain this week. Thus, Jennings’ stock is at serious risk.
Last weekend in Miami, he earned just 16.2% of the targets, and with a low per-target upside role, that sort of decline in usage is a red flag. The fact that a slow day at the office came in a game where the 49ers were playing from behind also worries me, as that is expected to be the case with the Lions coming to town.
I think you can get away with playing Jennings this week, understanding that Samuel is going to be moved all over the place and that Brock Purdy is likely to throw another 35-40 passes, but I’d caution against thinking that there is much in the way of upside in this profile.
Tim Patrick, WR
The idea of Tim Patrick made some sense seven days ago, but now that we have a picture of what this offense will look like sans David Montgomery, there’s no reason to dig this deep.
Patrick scored three times in two games but was targeted just one time on his 21 routes against the Bears last week; Jared Goff instead loaded up his stars with looks (Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Sam LaPorta accounted for 84.4% of Detroit’s targets last week).
Every week you should be speculating on players like Patrick — players with a role that has a path to expansion. If it doesn’t happen, you chalk it up and move on.
Amon-Ra St. Brown, WR
Wait, you’re telling me that Amon-Ra St. Brown caught 75% of his targets and found the end zone last week? That never happens …
Games with at least a 75% catch rate and a TD reception, 2024:
- Amon-Ra St. Brown: 10
- Mark Andrews: 7
- Ja’Marr Chase and George Kittle: 6
No player has married scoring equity with efficiency quite like St. Brown this season. When you zoom out, it’s even more impressive. Do you want the full list of instances since 2000 in which a player had more than 10 games like this through 16 weeks in a season?
- Randy Moss, 2007
That’s it, and that’s all. St. Brown’s name deserves to be thrown into the 1.01 discussion. He’s the first Lion to have multiple 100-1,000-10 seasons on his résumé, and I’m confident that he will add a third such year in 2025.
Deebo Samuel Sr., WR
Deebo Samuel Sr. has produced 15% below PPR expectations this season, the lowest rate of his otherwise very efficient career. His points per target (1.57) also sits at a career low and his expected points per game are down 6.4% from a season ago.
There are no two ways about it — 2024 has been a tough season for anyone who drafted Samuel. That said, if you’ve patchworked things together up to this point, we are finally getting the usage that we thought we’d get from the jump.
Week 16’s loss in Miami was his first game with 5+ targets and 5+ rush attempts since Week 1, and it might just stick given the injuries on the offensive side of the ball for San Francisco. He’s run the ball 12 times over his past three games, up from one attempt (for minus one yard) in his previous three games.
Better late than never, but never late is better.
Samuel turns 29 in less than a month and has more wear and tear at this age than more traditional receivers. I’m Flexing him this week, but his 2025 value is a giant question mark given his trajectory, not to mention the status of Brandon Aiyuk.
Jameson Williams, WR
Jameson Williams is coming off his third top-10 finish of the season (Weeks 1, 11, and 16) and, more importantly, his sixth straight game with 10+ expected PPR points. That second number is the one that has my interest as we know that Williams is plenty capable of making the chunk plays and exceeding expectations, but the built-in value of his recent targets helps elevate his floor to a place where I’m comfortably Flexing him weekly.
Williams would have been an auto-fade for me earlier in the season in this spot. The 49ers are the second-best yards per deep pass attempt defense in the league, and I would have never thought of playing him in a spot like that. But now? Now I think there’s enough versatility in his profile to land him as a top-35 WR.
Jared Goff is as efficient as anyone in the league, and with designs a part of the plan for Williams, I’ll take my chances. The big-play potential is still very much there (just ask Chicago’s secondary), but with a single-digit aDOT in three of his past five, I think there’s more well-roundedness than this burner gets credit for.
George Kittle, TE
The 49ers’ offense is caving in on itself a bit, but that means that their remaining stars get the type of usage we need. Deebo Samuel Sr. is coming off of his first five-target, five-carry game since Week 1, and George Kittle had his first game of 2024 in which he had at least eight targets AND 100 yards.
This is a concentrated offense at a high level, and even if you think Brock Purdy is ordinary, the raw talent of the two players he is funneling the ball to make them assets you can trust.
I very much worry about the scoring equity of this offense, and that is why I’m avoiding them in those exotic prime-time sorts of DFS slates when possible (Detroit is the best red-zone defense in terms of opponent completion percentage), but for season-long, Kittle is a great bet to finish among the top three at the position in targets, and that means you’re starting him.
Sam LaPorta, TE
At this point, Sam LaPorta isn’t going to cash in on our preseason hype, but he is trending in a strong direction at the right time. I think that stands to make this season a success for those who spent up early on him.
- Weeks 1-9: 3.3 targets per game (23rd among TEs)
- Weeks 10-16: 7.0 targets per game (seventh among TEs)
The volume is finally there, and it really hasn’t come at the cost of his teammates. LaPorta has reached double figures in PPR points in four straight games. With the Lions’ defense banged up at every level, I’m confident that this offense is going to be pushed consistently.
He may not have a clear path to being the top producer at the position right now, but he deserves to be locked in without a second thought.