Are the Jets Fantasy Relevant? ✈️

At this point, with all of the craziness that’s unfolded in Week 6, the Cowboys and Chargers are probably going to tie the game tonight. You heard it here first.

What’s in store:

• The 49ers take on heavy losses on offense. CMC, Deebo Samuel, and Trent Williams all missed parts of the loss on Sunday.

• Is it time to replace Dotson with Curtis Samuel? Dotson has been borderline undstartable all season long.

• Could a JSN breakout be on the horizon? The Seahawks new offensive scheme in Week 6 offers some encouragement.

• Brock Purdy has his first game to forget. HIs fantasy performance yesterday qualifies as uncharted territory for the second-year QB.

• Bears QB Justin Fields suffers injury to throwing hand, early reports indicate dislocated thumb

  • Fields was having a very pedestrian day in a good matchup against the Vikings before exiting the game. The injury comes on the heels of us ranking both Fields and WR D.J. Moore inside the Top-6 for this week at their respective positions, so that’s probably why this happened. The bad news for Fields is that unlike Justin Herbert who injured his non-throwing hand last week and is expected to play, Fields’ injury is to his throwing hand. He was unable to return to the game, and any time missed by him could stick a fork in what was shaping up to be an excellent string of matchups for the Bears’ duo over these next few weeks. Monitor the injury of course, but the immediate takeaway is to be prepared for Fields to miss some time.

• Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence goes down with knee injury late in win vs. Colts, status for future unknown

  • Not a good look for Trevor Lawrence to go down late in a game that was firmly in hand, but that’s the reality of the situation moving into the new week. Details are obviously very limited as of the writing of this newsletter, but considering that the Jaguars next game is this Thursday against the Saints, even a minor injury could be enough to keep him out for a week. Lawrence has looked good on film but has been relatively average as a fantasy quarterback so far this season, so in standard 1QB leagues he should be able to be comfortably replaced, all things considered. But in 2QB leagues, managers will be hard-pressed to find an immediate replacement for Lawrence beyond the waiver wire.

• 49ers RB Christian McCaffrey exits game with oblique injury; WR Deebo Samuel also does down

  • HC Kyle Shanahan had no updates following the game about the extents of either players’ injuries besides the fact that McCaffrey was dealing with an oblique AND a rib injury. It remains to be seen whether or not either player will miss time, but the rest of the 49ers offense lagged without the two playmakers in the lineup, particularly QB Brock Purdy. Purdy threw his first interception of the season against the Browns vaunted defense on just 125 yards passing. It’ll be important to monitor the status of both CMC and Deebo moving forward with a great matchup against Minnesota on deck in Week 7. If McCaffrey would miss any time, RBs Jordan Mason and Elijah Mitchell would be next in line to pick up the slack in the ground game.

• It was really encouraging to see Garrett Wilson haul in 8 of 12 targets for 90 yards. He got banged up a couple of times, but he looks like he’ll be ok. Robert Saleh said he could’ve finished the game. Either way, the Jets have a bye this week, so he should be good to go in Week 8.

• Breece Hall’s snap percentage went up, and his route participation went way up this week to 65%. According to Fantasy Life’s utilization report, he was at only 30% last week - this was literally the one piece that was missing from Breece Hall’s workload coming in, and while we said he was back last week, I think he’s officially officially back this week.

• Only 12 carries against a tough Eagles front, but the 5 catches for 54 yards really is what it’s all about - bunch of extra points in PPR, plus the TD, plus the production on the ground - now that he’s getting the route participation necessary on top of him dominating this backfield’s rushing attempts, Breece Hall is matchup proof.

• Are we dropping Jahan Dotson at this point? He ran one less route than Terry McLaurin, who saw 12 targets, but Dotson saw just one target - that 1 target happened to be a dropped pass that could’ve went in for a TD. Curtis Samuel had his fourth double digit PPR outing this year and his 3rd straight game with a TD - he’s been getting it done lately. He should be added to the ‘can be started’ list as a PPR flex moving forward. They have the Giants next week. And it was nice to see Terry McLaurin getting 12 targets - 50% target share after a sub-20% target share coming into this game.

• One thing to note about the backfield - rookie Chris Rodriguez ended up getting some carries in this game. Just something to monitor - Brian Robinson had 10 carries, Rodriguez had 4, and Gibson had 3… so I’m not sure that Gibson will be the bell cow back if Robinson were to ever get hurt.

• We talked about buying Tyler Lockett on last week’s buy/sell episode, and hopefully that helped you this week in PPR - he had his biggest yardage output of the season. And before you say it, ‘he had no touchdowns’… those TDs will still be coming. He saw a couple of end zone targets in this game, and with no scores again, that TD debt is going to continue to add up.

• But the most interesting thing coming out of this game was that it seemed like there was a serious intent to transition to a mainly 11 personnel coming out of their bye. Jaxon Smith-Njigba ran the same number of routes as Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf. Before the bye, it was kind of going up - according to Fantasy Life utilization, he had 75% route participation and 24% target share… and then today it got even better in terms of his playing time. He had a season high in route participation, so he needs to continue to be stashed; there’s too much upside here.

• We’re used to some of these rookies just breaking out early on, but he has to contend with two very good WRs. But there’s still a chance that he has a good second half of the year - that’s traditionally when rookie WRs start to come on. If you need wins now and can’t afford the bench stash, I totally get it, but if you can be a little patient it can pay off… and you never know, we might not have to wait too long.

• Literally one week after Dameon Pierce gets 100% of his backfield’s rushing attempts, the backfield touches were split down the middle 50/50. We got too excited… Singletary ended up being the more efficient runner, but we have to consider Pierce was stuffed inside the 5 on like 3 runs in a row, but Singletary also led in snap share.

• Pierce was only on the field for 33% of snaps - in a neutral and positive game script. They have the bye right now, and then they have the Panthers the week after, and you’re going to want to start Pierce… I think he’s worth holding onto for that matchup. Then he has the Bucs after that, who coming into this week, were allowing almost 5 yards per carry to RBs, and then the Bengals, and then the Cardinals, plus a matchup against Denver. Those matchups are going to be tempting… so just hold Pierce on your bench through the bye as frustrating as he’s been. And yeah, Singletary should probably be picked up if this sticks.

In a day full of upsets, perhaps none was more shocking than the Browns stifling of what had been a fantastic 49ers offense coming into the game. For the first time this season, San Francisco was held under 30 points in a game. Granted, the 49ers were dealing with their fair share of injuries - Trent Williams, Christian McCaffrey, and Deebo Samuel all needed medical attention at some point during the game - but one of the players most negatively influenced by those developments was QB Brock Purdy.

For the first time in his career as a starter, Purdy posted a single-digit fantasy total in a game that he finished. Purdy’s 8.7 fantasy points constitute the lowest fantasy production he’s had in his career, and that low production comes in what also counts as Purdy’s first regular season loss in his career.

Despite the poor production against the Browns, Purdy’s outlook remains the same assuming that none of the 49ers weapons miss a significant amount of time. The Browns have fielded one of the best overall defenses against all positions over the first six weeks of the season, so fantasy managers shouldn’t take Purdy’s first subpar performance to badly.