I was unfortunately out for most of the day yesterday, but I’m going to write this take today or in Stealing Signals this week, so I might as well get a short writeup out now.
Later Friday, Christian McCaffrey was confirmed as out for Week 2, and then Saturday he was placed on IR. Importantly, his injury is such that whenever he’s ready to play, it’s hard to envision him in a workhorse role. This isn’t just a “wait for CMC to return” situation. This more or less changes everything about our expectations for the 49ers this season.
I tweeted about people adding Isaac Guerendo Friday, and I got some questions about shallow-league drops that would be necessary, and I honestly didn’t know. I decided in one home league not to drop Blake Corum or MarShawn Lloyd, which would have been the two possibilities. I had an easier drop in another home league and did add Guerendo.
But one of the comments I got back was that Guerendo’s runway would be short. Basically, it said, Jordan Mason would have to get hurt this week, and then Guerendo would be used Week 3 at the earliest, and then the 49ers have a Week 9 bye and the expectation is CMC will be back Week 10 and so it’s like five weeks at best.
Setting aside how valuable five weeks is — that’s a third of the season — this isn’t the way I’d think about it at all. What we know now changes everything about how we’d project McCaffrey and the 49ers offense, even when he’s back. I work through projections on a team-by-team basis, and a big part of George Kittle’s ADP, for example, was tied to the difficulty of him finding volume. I called him the discount Sam LaPorta all offseason as a guy we know is good but has really good teammates, and after Jameson Williams hit in Week 1 and the CMC stuff, it’s more like those guys’ prices should be close. I do realize Kittle’s age, but based on his per-route and per-target efficiency, and the shallow-area target volume that has opened up in this offense, it should shock no one if he’s one of the most valuable TEs this year.
I was also pretty out on Brandon Aiyuk all offseason because of a concern about volume. But a massive part of that was because to start projecting this team I started with the stuff I thought would be firm, and CMC’s weekly volume was that, more or less since he was acquired via trade. This offseason, the 49ers gave him a new contract with a bunch of new guaranteed money, even as he already sat atop the RB market. It’s hard to square people in the fantasy space acting like this was inevitable with the 49ers making that decision.
Anyway, with CMC out, you’re talking about a different run/pass split, because Mason is a different type of back. Mason caught one pass last week, and I wouldn’t expect a ton of receptions from him.
When they do pass, you’re talking about taking away some of the shorter-area stuff McCaffrey does so well. Some of his targets are designed, with him split out or in the slot, running an option route at a linebacker where he’s the first read. Mason’s not doing that. That play just doesn’t get called if CMC isn’t in the offense. It impacts the volume in a major way.
What I suspect does get called is more man-beater routes for Aiyuk. I wrote in Input Volatility Friday that he’s a great buy, and I wanted to let that marinate a little for anyone wanting to act on it. As an Aiyuk skeptic, I think his ceiling case is way, way easier to see now. One of the big reasons you’d make that bet is the 3+ YPRR-type efficiency last year should lead to more target volume in most cases. We know efficiency leads to volume, and it’s obviously logical. Teams make great players into focal points.
But I thought San Francisco was a unique case, and that Aiyuk played a unique role, and that even if say CMC missed some time in-season, that they wouldn’t change up the whole offense. But they will now. CMC missed Week 1, and they haven’t even established their 2024 identity. He’s now on IR. This is obviously not going to be “How do we cover for CMC?” in some short-term way. It’s designing an offense that has answers and contingencies where CMC isn’t even a primary. He’s not part of the discussion right now. If he can get back and be healthy, they’ll incorporate him as an additive piece. But they have to find other solutions. He’s as far from being the centerpiece as possible.
That means Deebo Samuel is definitely going to be more of a centerpiece, too, and we always knew he’d do some more halfback stuff if CMC missed, which we saw in Week 1. But I kind of always had him seeing creative usage regardless of CMC’s status, as he’s that guy in the offense who is involved in the gameplan regardless of script and situation. He’s always doing something.
Aiyuk’s the one who got lost last year, some weeks, and wound up with just 105 targets despite earning the volume well and doing stuff from an efficiency perspective that suggested he should be the first read on key downs. With CMC’s option routes and those things out of the offense, I do think we’ll see more of that for Aiyuk. They gave him the contract, and while his Week 1 didn’t go as planned, I’d suspect he’s now in for a top-10 WR season. This is the kind of thing where if I knew CMC was really going to miss half the NFL season, I would have probably been drafting Aiyuk near A.J. Brown at the end of the first round. They are comparable profiles to me at that point.
I know some will ask, “Why didn’t you consider this contingency?” because I’m always writing about upside scenarios, and what types of stuff could hit. It’s a fair question about a 28-year-old RB. But sometimes we do over-plan for contingencies; I get asked after the fact more about why I thought something might happen. I’ve been asked a bunch this week about which RBs to stash which is all other contingencies that may never happen. People hate loading up on backup RBs this time of year. But then a situation like this happens, and you’re reminded how much the values on the players involved can be impacted.
And obviously no one expected this. The reporting was almost intentionally misleading, as the most connected man in fantasy football noted in a tweet yesterday.
It’s just a really tough thing, and a reminder that fantasy football is pretty wack sometimes, honestly.
But I do also wonder how much the 49ers knew, and when. Tendonitis is a tough thing. The “Jordan Mason knew he was starting on Friday” thing could have easily been, “Hey, make sure you’re ready young buck,” but they were holding out hope. The reporting on the Aiyuk extension made it seem like he was a legit 50/50 to be shipped out, with the ex post facto details suggesting the day he finally signed there was last-minute drama where the 49ers were on the phone agreeing to the deal and Aiyuk showed up in the building and eventually signed. All those details were confusing to me, but my question would be: Would the 49ers have been more urgent if they had indications CMC might be on IR? I kind of assume so, because the only real reason to move on from him was the unique way the 49ers’ offense tended to deprioritize a player of his ability, and that was largely dependent on this high-volume run-and-pass uniquely-skilled RB being the centerpiece.
Which all gets back to the main point of this piece a couple hours before Week 2. If I knew all this before the season, my projections would have been impacted for every single player in this offense. The range of outcomes for players like Ricky Pearsall would have been very different, although obviously he’s rehabbing right now, too.
The player I haven’t mentioned yet is Brock Purdy, but as a QB on a high-scoring offense that offers some but not a ton of mobility, a huge part of Purdy’s fantasy upside was centered on his pass TD rate. We know that stat fluctuates, but having an RB who can catch a green zone TD as easily as run one in was helpful for Purdy’s projection. Last year, Purdy ranked fifth in the NFL in passing yards, and was third in pass TDs at 31, despite not being in the top 10 in pass attempts.
I think there’s still potential for him to throw for a lot of yards, but I would suspect games like Week 1 — where he didn’t throw for a TD — are far more plausible for him. Last year, that happened just twice all season, in 19 games played. To me, Purdy goes from an intriguing upside play on the potential for a 35-pass-TD season, to just a guy for fantasy purposes, even while I’m upgrading the volume for some of his efficient receivers like Aiyuk (which obviously does have a positive impact on Purdy). I know sounds contradictory, but such is the impact of removing the overall 1.01, who had 67 receptions and 7 TDs receiving last year, and over 2,000 yards from scrimmage and 21 TDs total. He was the Offensive Player of the Year. Of course it changes things.
And then just to wrap back around, even after McCaffrey comes back, we’re talking about whatever is working at that point being the focus. It could be Mason, well on his way to a 1,500-yard rushing season. He’s going to challenge for the most valuable player in all of fantasy, and part of my comments on Purdy relate back to Mason being very easy to project for double-digit scores.
And if something happens to Mason, even though Patrick Taylor is there, too, I think you’re talking about Guerendo as the next man up in that way. And say Guerendo starts to play around like Week 6 because something unfortunate happens to Mason — like it can to any lead back — Guerendo could show plenty by the Week 9 bye to stick in a role that helps ease McCaffrey back in, because again, even when he returns, they aren’t going to push him to 90% snaps.
The 49ers lost a key player with Achilles’ tendonitis during the Super Bowl when his Achilles ruptured. They also have Super Bowl aspirations again this year. McCaffrey is unlikely to play huge snaps when we need him in fantasy, because their greater focus will be on limiting his exposure to catastrophic injury while ramping him up slowly to have him ready for a playoff stretch. That means that note about Guerendo having a short shelf life — should he find success in this offense — not being accurate.
All we know is everything is different. What we have learned from the other injured players early in the regular season is these things can linger beyond the minimum timeline. If you took anything from Hollywood Brown, let it be not to be overly optimistic on CMC’s return and immediate impact upon return. I’m hearing way too much counting the days, when you’re way better off thinking right now that he’s more or less not part of the regular season plans for San Francisco.
And to recap, that means:
Jordan Mason is here to stay
Knock to Purdy’s pass TD rate, as they have a more bully lead RB with limited receiving potential
Bumps to pass volume for Aiyuk and Kittle, whose theses were impacted by it being difficult to project big pass vol, but who are very efficient per pass rep, so meaningful value increases
Far more of a centerpiece role for Deebo, who will run some and do a ton, but in my mind he was always sort of going to do that
Guerendo as a high-upside stash with the potential to carve out role, should something happen to Mason
Good luck this week! I’ll be back tomorrow with Part 1 of Stealing Signals.
I think the issue with Guerendo is that he missed a lot of training camp, is clearly a rookie, and was clearly not trusted enough in week 1 to have much of any of a role (I think he had <5 offensive snaps and didn’t register a carry. I guess we can see if his role evolves with Mason, but as of now I think if Mason gets hurt the 9ers would bring in a vet which would greatly limit Guerendo’s upside.