The San Francisco 49ers fantasy football preview attempts to navigate a few major injuries, while the Minnesota Vikings fantasy outlook tries to pick a winner in the race for WR1 honors with Justin Jefferson sidelined.
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San Francisco 49ers at Minnesota Vikings
- Spread: 49ers -6.5
- Total: 44
- 49ers implied points: 18.8
- Vikings implied points: 25.3
Quarterbacks
Brock Purdy: The Cleveland Browns are going to make a lot of quarterbacks look average this season. That’s just a fact, and it doesn’t help when you lose two of your top playmakers during the game.
Purdy had the 49ers averaging 30 points a game before his Week 6 dud, and I’ll back that sample size over the four-quarter disaster that was Sunday. The Minnesota Vikings allow the third-highest Passer Rating to opposing QBs this season and are especially vulnerable to the Purdy “YAC experience,” with their league-leading 48.5% blitz rate.
MORE: PFN Consensus Rankings
The lack of rushing ability (11 rush yards since rushing for 20 in Week 1) scares me when it comes to discussing his long-term floor, but for Week 6, I have zero hesitation in labeling him as a top-10 QB.
Kirk Cousins: In Week 5, WR Justin Jefferson was injured during the game, and Cousins averaged a season-low 6.0 yards per attempt against the Kansas City Chiefs. Last week, against a much more gettable Chicago Bears defense, he was even worse with 5.8 yards per attempt, per the Week 7 Cheat Sheet.
Earlier this season, Cousins was a strong play unless the matchup dictated otherwise. Now, he should be viewed as a weak play. In each of the first three weeks, he had a completion gaining over 40 yards, but since then, he hasn’t had a completion gaining more than 30.
I have Cousins ranked as my QB16 this week, behind options like Washington Commanders QB Sam Howell, Green Bay Packers QB Jordan Love, and Los Angeles Rams QB Matthew Stafford.
Running Backs
Christian McCaffrey: The hope is McCaffrey (oblique) is good to go for Monday night, and in an ideal world, you can wait that decision out with one of his backups on your roster. If that’s not the case, make sure to tune into the PFN Fantasy YouTube Channel late Sunday morning as we go live to help you optimize your lineup.
If McCaffrey is set to play, you play him – simple as that. If there is doubt going into lineup lock on Sunday, I’d be tempted to eliminate the headache and avoid the zero. If you have RBs like Elijah Mitchell, Jordan Mason, or Minnesota Vikings WR K.J. Osborn you can move to Flex McCaffrey and wait. Vikings RB Cam Akers is about where I’d draw the line and opt to start a Sunday player instead of waiting.
Elijah Mitchell and Jordan Mason: It should be obvious that neither of these players would be a one-to-one replacement for McCaffrey, but there’s no need for that. I currently prefer Mitchell to Mason, and if the starter can give you even 60% of McCaffrey’s production, that’s the equivalent of Atlanta Falcons RB Bijan Robinson.
If we get word that McCaffrey will sit, I’d place both Mitchell and Mason as reasonable Flex options. If we were to get clarity that Mitchell or Mason would be “the guy,” that player would flirt with top-20 status at the position, but I’d bet against us getting that level of clarity.
Alexander Mattison: As unspectacular as Mattison has been (zero of his 100 touches this season gaining over 20 yards), he remains the clear-cut lead back for Minnesota. He touched the rock 22 times in the win over the Chicago Bears last week, and given the state of the position right now, that locks you into an RB2 ranking, regardless of matchup.
Now, he’s on the very low end of that tier with players like Tampa Bay Buccaneers RB Rachaad White, Cleveland Browns RB Jerome Ford, and New England Patriots RB Rhamondre Stevenson, but he is viable this week in a brutal spot due to the lack of other options.
Cam Akers: With two touches and just nine snaps with six routes run in Week 6, Akers is pretty clearly just roster depth. He’s an accent piece or a nice coffee table in the corner. He’s nice to have, but he isn’t impactful in the overall scheme of things.
Mattison is pretty clearly the lead back in this offense and not one that I’m interested in ensuring. Akers has 11 carries and five catches in his three games with the Vikes. You can safely move on if you are still holding onto him.
Wide Receivers
Deebo Samuel: Much like McCaffrey, Samuel (shoulder) was hoping to play through the pain, but he will sit OUT this game and likely next as well.
Is he a good buy for competitive teams that can wait? I think it’s an avenue worth exploring if the Samuel managers is in desperation mode.
Brandon Aiyuk: With an aDOT that is roughly double WR Deebo Samuel’s, Aiyuk offers a risk/reward profile that is a better bet in this offense than most due to the versatility of the weapons on this roster.
First-read target shares over the past month, per the @FantasyPtsData Suite:
45% — Garrett Wilson
44% — DJ Moore
43% — Stefon Diggs, Ja’Marr Chase
42% — Keenan Allen, Cooper Kupp*
41% — Davante Adams
40% — A.J. Brown
39% — Brandon Aiyuk
38% — Amon-Ra St. Brown— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) October 18, 2023
With Samuel banged up, you can feel comfortable locking in Aiyuk for 8-10 targets in a plus-matchup. He moved from a nice WR2 in my ranks to a low-end WR1 with the news about Samuel giving us target clarity.
Jordan Addison: The rookie was targeted with Cousins’ first pass of the game – a 15-yard gain – and scored, which is something he has done in four of his six games. Addison showed off some big play upside in the first two games of his career with seven catches for 133 yards, but he hasn’t had a 20-yard catch since. That leaves him with a low floor if he can’t separate as Minnesota’s WR1.
MORE: 2023 WR Fantasy Football Rankings
Addison is floating around WR30 for me and can be flexed if you’re struggling with injuries/byes, but understand the floor that comes with increased defensive attention in a game where the Vikings aren’t expected to score 20 points.
K.J. Osborn: He and Addison saw identical usage last week (33 routes and five targets apiece), and that could turn the Minnesota receiver room into something that resembles the Pittsburgh ground game. That is, you have two options fighting for a single valuable role, and with little separation, neither is reliable.
Osborn’s 80% catch rate from last week was encouraging (season prior: 50%), but until we have role clarity, he’s not going to rank as a top-35 play for me.
Tight Ends
George Kittle: I’m not listening to your complaints – I’m not doing it.
You knew exactly what you were getting when you signed up for the “Kittle Experience.” You knew there were three touchdown weeks and weeks with one catch – games where he looks unstoppable and games where you don’t hear his name mentioned on the broadcast for two hours. This is exactly what you signed up for in August.
Kittle has seen a total of seven targets so far in October. This is very much a “take what they give us” offense, and Kittle has drawn the short straw lately. It’ll flip back the other way and then back again.
You’ve been to a theme park recently, right? You signed up for this rollercoaster, and there’s no jumping off in the middle of the ride. This is a matchup that looks favorable for this passing game, and that gives Kittle the ability to swing your matchup in the final game of the week. He’s my second-favorite tight end in this game, but he’s still easily a top-10 option for a ceiling that few at the position have to access.
T.J. Hockenson: The matchup this week and a four-game scoreless streak has me downgrading Hockenson to the bottom of Tier 2 for the position, but that shouldn’t change how you feel about him in for the rest of the season. Lock him in.
He posted a 17% target share in the first five weeks of this season, which is a rate that spiked to 26.7% in the first game since WR Justin Jefferson landed on the IR. That’s good news moving forward and has him as my TE2 the rest of the way. But I’m not sure how many scoring chances Minnesota generates on Monday night, and that caps his ceiling.
Should You Start Brock Purdy or Jordan Love?
I like Love coming off of a bye, but Purdy is the play here. He had a single bad week after thrusting himself into the middle of the MVP discussion, and he is in a very favorable spot — don’t overreact. The Love upside is about on par with the expectation for Purdy, so I’m siding with the elevated floor.
Should You Start Alexander Mattison or Jerome Ford?
Kareem Hunt is becoming a thing in Cleveland, and given that Ford has yet to show us much in the way of efficiency, there’s a chance the hierarchy in Cleveland could flip sooner than later.
I don’t have the concern in Minnesota, and while this is a tough matchup, his touch count gives him the edge over Ford in my Week 7 rankings.