Another 49ers RB does down 🤕

If you had Josh Allen in your lineup this week, congratulations: welcome to the fantasy football playoffs. If you ended up getting Josh Allen’d this week, our sincerest condolences to you and you fantasy playoff hopes. It’s not everyday a quarterback scores 50 fantasy points (it’s only never happened before yesterday!).

Obviously Josh Allen is going to top the list this week, but here’s a look at your top-10 fantasy performers as usual heading into MNF.

• 49ers RB Isaac Guerendo turns in excellent performance off waiver wire in Week 14 before exiting game with foot injury

  • The waiver wire warriors who spent up this past week to acquire Guerendo were rewarded handsomely in Week 14, even with the 49ers RB leaving the game early due to a foot injury. Prior to leaving, Guerendo handled the ball 17 times for 128 yards and two touchdowns, turning in a top-5 fantasy performance pending MNF in his first week as the starter. The issue? With the game well in hand, Guerendo suffered a foot injury that held him out for the remainder of the contest. The extent of the injury remains unclear as of the writing of this newsletter, with HC Kyle Shanahan indicating that early imaging wasn’t conclusive but tossed the idea out there that he could be dealing with a sprain. If that’s the case, Geurendo’s status for Week 15 could be significantly in doubt as the 49ers are scheduled to play the Rams on Thursday night in just three days. It’s hard to know exactly how the backfield would shake out if Guerendo were to miss any time moving forward considering the lopsided nature of the game script in San Fran’s game against the Bears – however, Patrick Taylor was the ballcarrier handling the majority of the work in relief of Guerendo. For now, let’s hope that the injury bug that took down CMC and Jordan Mason hasn’t claimed its next victim in Guerendo, but Patrick Taylor profiles as a clear waiver wire add this week going into the fantasy playoffs.

• Raiders QB Aidan O’Connell suffers apparent knee injury in loss to Buccaneers, doesn’t return to action

  • The Raiders’ QB room was already obviously lacking quality, but it’s starting to become a quantity issue as well with O’Connell suffering an apparent significant knee injury yesterday against the Bucs. His injury comes on the heels of Gardner Minshew’s season-ending shoulder injury two weeks ago and leaves the team in the uber-capable hands of Desmond Ridder to close out the final four games of the season. None of the Las Vegas pass catchers were able to come through besides Jakobi Meyers, who simply salvaged his day by reeling in seven of his ten targets for 67 scoreless yards. The outlook for the Raiders’ offense the rest of the way is bleak to say the least, but with matchups against Atlanta, Jacksonville, and New Orleans yet to play, it shouldn’t matter too much who’s under center at this point for the Brock Bowers and Jakobi Meyers’ of the world. HC Antonio Pierce reported after the game that O’Connell’s knee injury ‘doesn’t look good’, so it’s likely fair to expect him to miss the rest of the season barring a surprise optimistic diagnosis. Continue to start Bowers and Meyers as usual, but expect a slightly lower floor with Ridder at the helm.

• Buccaneers RB Bucky Irving exits game early vs Raiders with back injury, doesn’t return to the game

  • Irving played a relatively productive few drives of football before leaving the game in the second quarter and not returning. With Irving out, Rachaad White saw the bulk of the workload in Tampa Bay’s backfield, posting his best fantasy performance since Week 7 and scoring two touchdowns in the process. Irving was questionable coming into the matchup with back and hip injuries, and it seems like he played the first quarter to see how he felt and the coaches ultimately determined to hold him out for the rest of the game. From a real life perspective, this makes plenty of sense; however, fantasy managers felt the pain in their lineups this week with Bucky’s drastically shortened day dragging their totals in the final week of the fantasy regular season. With a matchup against the Chargers on tap next week, expectations should be tempered for a banged up Bucky Irving if he would end up being active in Week 15, but there’s also a chance that the Bucs end up giving Irving one more week to rest with Rachaad White and Sean Tucker proving themselves perfectly capable of shouldering the load together. Stay tuned later today for a more precise report on what we can expect for Bucky moving forward.