Falcons (

23) at
49ers (

24)

XANDAMERE’S SHOWDOWN SLANT

Sunday Night Football has the Falcons visiting San Francisco for a 47.5 total game with the 49ers favored by 2.5. Both teams are expecting reinforcements as George Kittle and Darnell Mooney are both expected to play, per the coaches. 

SAN FRANCISCO

On the 49ers side of things, Christian McCaffrey is in one of the elite bell cow roles of the league, playing at least 76% of the offensive snaps in every game. CMC is averaging – AVERAGING – 28 opportunities per game, which is absolutely insane. He has at least 6 receptions in every game. Kittle coming back does give San Francisco another capable receiver, but he’s never been a high-volume guy, and any target reduction is offset by San Francisco getting back one of their key blockers, which should help CMC’s rushing efficiency. Efficiency has been the only knock against CMC as he’s averaging only 3.1 yards per carry this year, the lowest of his career, but a matchup against an Atlanta D allowing a whopping 4.8 yards per carry, along with Kittle being back, should help him there. CMS is an elite play. Not much else to say about him. RB2 Brian Robinson is barely seeing the field while CMC is healthy. You can take a shot here, of course, as if he finds the end zone, he could be relevant, but he’s at least $1k too expensive for his role, and he probably needs CMC to get hurt in order to have much of a shot at fantasy relevance. 

Showdown Ownership Projections!

Ownership updates automatically

In the passing game, Brock Purdy, Brandon Aiyuk, and Ricky Pearsall remain out, leaving Mac Jones at quarterback and a wide receiver corps of Jauan Jennings, Kendrick Bourne, Demarcus Robinson, and Skyy Moore (Marquez Valdes-Scantling was also put on injured reserve this week). Jennings is also playing with broken ribs, which is clearly affecting his mobility. He was running routes last week but only saw 3 targets despite Jones throwing 39 times. I assume that will suppress his ownership, but he’s really just a volatile tourney play at the moment. Not necessarily a bad play, but just don’t be surprised if he has another game similar to last week. Bourne and Jones played together in New England, and OWS was all over that connection earlier this year, and Bourne has caught 15 of 20 targets for 284 yards in their last two games together. I expect him to be very highly owned, but he sure looks like the WR1 of this offense right now. The matchup is not great, as I expect him to see a lot of top Atlanta cornerback A.J. Terrell, but we care more about volume. Bourne is a solid play at his price, and Kittle’s return might keep his ownership from getting out of control. Robinson should be in the WR3 role, though the 49ers play a lot of 2-wide sets with 2 TEs or fullback Kyle Juszczyk on the field, so their WR3 role is generally somewhat limited production-wise, leaving him as a fairly thin value option, and then Moore is just a dart throw.

Kittle should return to something like his normal full role, but there is some additional volatility here. Maybe he’s totally normal, maybe he’s restricted a little bit, but either way, we haven’t seen him with Jones yet, and so it’s a little tougher than usual to see how his role might shake out. Kittle is always a volatile low floor, high ceiling play, so nothing really changes a ton with that profile, but he still has one of the highest ceilings on the slate. Just remember, something like 3 catches for 22 yards is also well within his range of outcomes. In Kittle’s absence, Jake Tonges has shown himself to be a capable receiver and a real part of the offense. I expect he retains some kind of role and can still be viewed as a tournament dart throw. 

ATLANTA