Kickoff Sunday, Sep 11th 1:00pm Eastern

49ers (
22.25) at

Bears (
15.75)

Over/Under 38.0

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Notes

Key Matchups
49ers Run D
15th DVOA/18th Yards allowed per carry
Bears Run O
10th DVOA/6th Yards per carry
49ers Pass D
4th DVOA/3rd Yards allowed per pass
Bears Pass O
23rd DVOA/23rd Yards per pass
Bears Run D
4th DVOA/4th Yards allowed per carry
49ers Run O
2nd DVOA/4th Yards per carry
Bears Pass D
17th DVOA/11th Yards allowed per pass
49ers Pass O
1st DVOA/1st Yards per pass

Game Overview ::

By hilow>>
  • Chicago has been busy on the waiver wire over the previous week bringing in seven players, many of whom could immediately fill positions of need in the starting lineup. The only issue is they won’t have much in the way of practice time with their new team.
  • One of the widest range of outcomes games on the main slate.
  • San Francisco should drive the game flow, meaning lower than average total volume and potential fantasy ranges of outcomes driven by efficiency rather than volume.

How san Francisco Will Try To Win ::

Although we have a changing of the guard, so to speak, at the quarterback position for the 49ers this year, we can be fairly certain of how this team will approach trying to win games moving forward. We have a team with an established coaching staff and established identity that will now be adapting that identity to a quarterback with a different skill set than previous iterations, as opposed to say, their opponent in Week 1 that is basically building from scratch. The identity of this team is to aggressively hunt the football on defense (22 forced fumbles and eight different players with an interception in 2021) utilizing complex zone concepts. On offense, they use an outside zone run scheme designed to get the football to its playmakers in space with an overall emphasis on winning the time of possession battle and minimizing mistakes. Now add in the dynamic skillset of Trey Lance and we’re left with an offense that should be heavily biased towards the run and leveraged passing situations, built to maximize the upside of yards after the catch giants George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, and Brandon Aiyuk. It will be interesting to see how often the legs of Lance will be utilized early in the season in conjunction with that offensive shell, how often Deebo Samuel will be aligned in the backfield or utilized on sweeps and end arounds, and how often Kittle will be in a route.

Elijah Mitchell is the unquestioned lead of this backfield after making his mark on the 2021 season, amassing 1132 yards on the ground on 262 carries (a solid 4.32 yards per carry). His combination of vision, decisiveness, and explosion out of the first cut is really the perfect fit for the offensive scheme employed by Shanahan. He should be primarily backed up by Jeff Wilson, Jr. when healthy, followed by third-round rookie Tyrion Davis-Price. Both Trey Sermon and JaMycal Hasty were recently released by the team. They should carry three running backs and fullback Kyle Juszczyk on game day. San Francisco’s heavy 34% 21-personnel usage rate from 2021 (led the league by a wide margin) should carry over into 2022, but it’s a bit misleading from a top-level perspective in that the majority of the time it was the primary running back and Juszczyk on the field together, not two running backs. Add the approximately 10% of snaps from 12-personnel and we’re left with an offense that operates primarily from alignments with only two wide receivers on the field: Deebo and Aiyuk. All of that to say, the primary running back on this offense should be on the field a ton. The other side of that discussion is the historically low pass game involvement from the position, meaning the primary back in this offense should be viewed as a “yardage and touchdown back.” The Bears allowed over 100 yards rushing per game in 2021 but somehow only surrendered nine total rushing scores and 88 targets to the position, more of a nod to the game flows opponents routinely found themselves in.

The San Francisco pass offense is concentrated by necessity (largely due to the personnel groupings they like to run) but lacks any semblance of bankable weekly volume. For example, Deebo saw 120 targets in 2021, Kittle saw 95, and Aiyuk saw 85. The next highest target number over the course of the entire season was Jauan Jennings at 39. That said, this is an offense that threw the ball only 29.4 times per game in 2021 (second fewest in the league ahead of only the Seahawks). Since we can expect the overall identity of the offense to remain rather static heading into the new season, that means we should expect low volume and efficiency to be the name of the game in contests the 49ers are allowed to control or play to neutral scripts. More on the ramifications of these truths below in the DFS+ Interpretation section.

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Overview

  • Tied for the lowest total on the week (41.5)
  • SF is favored by 7 (2nd highest spread)
  • CHI has the lowest team total on the week (17)
  • In 2021, SF rushed on 48.4% of their plays w/ Garoppolo (4th highest)
  • They finished 2nd in pass yds/att (8.5)
  • CHI rushed on 44.2% of their plays (9th highest)
  • These teams faced each other last season in CHI (WK 8): SF-33 CHI-22
  • Kyle Shanahan is 1-4 ATS as HC in WK 1 games

Trey Lance

  • ‘21 stats: Pass (47:71:603:5TDs:2INTs // avg 8.5 yds/comp) // Rush (38:168:1TD // 4.4 yds/att) 
  • ‘22 Preseason: Pass  (4:5:92yds:1TD:0INT) // Rush (1:7yds)
  • In Lance’s two starts last season: 15.6 DK pts (2.74x salary) // 20.1 DK pts (4.19x salary)
  • $6.0k is the 9th highest priced QB on DK // $7.5k is the 8th highest priced QB on FD
  • CHI only faced 1 true “rush” QB: Murray (30.8 DK pts // Rush-10:59:2TDs)
  • They allowed the highest QB rating in the league last season (103.3) but were 4th in sacks (49)
  • CHI D was middle of league in DK pts/g allowed to QBs last season (18.7)

Deebo Samuel 

  • Deebo in Lance Starts  (Rec 6:121:1TD // Rush 8:32:0TDs)
  • $7.4k is the 3rd highest WR salary on DK main slate (Adams-$8.1k // Jefferson-$7.8k)
  • 2021 season: 5 gms w/ 10+ tgts: (12:10:13:11:11) // 4 in the first 7 WKs
  • 4 gms w/ 100+ rec yds: (189 // 156 // 100 // 171 // 159) // 3 others w/ 90+ (93 // 97 // 95)
  • 23rd among WRs in tgts (114) // T-21st in receptions (77) // 5th most rec yds (1,405) // 2nd in YAC (780)
  • In the 1st 7 games of 2021: 117 rec yds/g // 4 rec TDs
  • ‘21 vs CHI: (6 rec/171yds/1TD)
  •  This was his highest receiving yards total of  the season 
  • George Kittle was out & he didn’t have any rush attempts
  • 19 gms played // 16 TDs (7 rec // 9 rush)
  • From WK 10 on incl. playoffs: (7.5 rush atts/g // 44.4 rush yds/g // 8 rush TDs)

Brandon Aiyuk

  • Aiyuk in Lance starts (6:126:0TDs)
  • He played every game last season (20 including playoffs)
  • In the 2020 , as a rookie, Aiyuk finished WR6 (.5 ppr) from WK 7 on
  • He was WR14 from WK 8 on last season (.5 ppr)
  • CHI D allowed 35.7 DK pts/g to WR (middle of league)

George Kittle

  • Kittle in Lance Starts: (1:29:0 TDs)
  • In 17 gms played (including playoffs), Kittle had 3 above 20 DK pts: 24.1 (4.63x) // 42.6 (7.22x) // 37.1 (5.37x)
  • DNP last season vs CHI
  • CHI D allowed the 6th lowest DK pts to TEs last season (8.7)

Elijah Mitchell 

  • Broke SF’s rookie rushing yds record despite missing 6 gms (963)
  • 14 games played // 6 games w/ 20+ atts 
  • He had 5 of 14 games above 3x DK salary: 4.9x (19.4 pts) // 3.9x (19.7) // 4.2x (22.7) // 5.7x (30.8) // 4.0x (24.0) 
  • T-27th priced RB on DK main slate ($5.4k) despite SF being a 7 point fav // 16th priced RB on FD ($6.7k)
  • CHI gave up 22.3 DK pts/g to RBs last season (14th)

Justin Fields

  • In 12 games, Fields had one w/ 20+ DK pts (29.3)
  • He had 4 games above 3x DK salary: (5.9x // 3.3x // 4.1x // 3.4x)
  • Averaged 6 rush attps/g // 35 rush yds/g 
  • 7 pass TDs // 2 rush TDs // 10 INTs on season
  • Fields vs SF ‘21: Pass (19:27:175:1TD:1INT) // Rush (10:103:1TD) // 29.3 DK pts (highest of season) 
  • SF D allowed the 6th most rush yds/g to QBs (22.6)
  • SF vs other rush QBs: (Hurts-21.8 DK pts // rush 10:82:1TD) // (Murray-13.7 DK pts // rush 7:1:0TDs)
  • SF allowed the 15th least DK pts to QBs last season (18.6)

Darnell Mooney

  • 5 games above 20 DK pts in 2021: 21.5 (5.5x) // 20.6 (4.2x) // 26.1 (5.0x) // 20.5 (3.6x) // 27.6 (4.7x)
  • 3 games w/ 10+ tgts (16, 13, 16) & 4 w/ 100+ yds (125 // 121 // 123 // 126)
  • 26.4% tgt share // 134 total tgts // 11th highest among WRs
  • $5.9k was his highest salary on DK in 2021 (WK 18) 
  • He’s $5.7k WK 1 
  • Last season vs SF (12.4 DK pts // 6:64:0TDs)
  • Byron Pringle & 3rd RD RK Velus Jones Jr are Q for WK 1
  • Equanimeous St Brown ($3k DK) could be WR 2 WK 1
  • SF allowed the 10th most DK pts to WRs last season (36.9)

David Montgomery/Khalil Herbert

  • Montgomery DNP vs SF in ‘21
  • Herbert vs SF in ‘21 (Rush 23:72:0TDs // Rec 2:-4:0TDs // 8.8 DK pts)
  • He had 2 games in 2021 with 10+ DK pts (19.2 // 21.3)
  • Montgomery missed both games
  • Montgomery had 5 gms (of 13 played) with 20+ DK pts (3 vs NFC West): @ LAR-21.8 // vs DET-25.6 // vs ARZ-28.1 // @ SEA-23.6 // vs NYG-21.1
  • SF allowed 21.8 DK pts/g vs RBs last season (10th fewest)

Cole Kmet

  • Kmet in 2021:  0 TDs //  0 games w/ 90+ rec yds // 0 w/ 9+ tgts
  • $3.7k is just $100 lower than his season high in 2021 (WK 1)
  • Kmet DK pts in Fields starts (2.1 // 1.6 // 4.2 // 8.9 // 9.3 // 5.4 // 14.7 // DNP // 7.1 // 4.7)
  • He finished 2nd in team tgts with 89 (18% tgt share) 
  • Kmet ran a route on 83.3% of passing snaps
  • SF allowed 9.4 DK pts to TEs last season (7th least)