SAN FRANCISCO (vs. Seattle, played in Arizona)
The 49ers are 2-6 in their last eight games, but they're not just mailing it in. They're still playing hard. They just went into Arizona and outplayed a team that's hoping to make to the postseason. The offense has scored 3, 2, 4 and 3 touchdowns in its last four games ...
... held under 3 TDs only by a good Washington defense. Seattle's defense has been on the rise recently, but most of the strong efforts have come against lesser offenses. Prior to holding the Rams to 9 points on Sunday (which admittedly was impressive) the previous four games were against the Eagles, Giants, Jets and Washington. San Francisco should score 2 TDs in this game, with a chance of a third. ... Raheem Mostert is on IR, so it will be Jeff Wilson as the featured runner. They got him going nicely on Saturday against the Cardinals, with Wilson running for 183 yards and catching a touchdown. ...
This report is taken from today's Week 17 edition of Fantasy Index Weekly. The newsletter includes our player rankings and 21 pages of matchup previews, plus stat projections and custom rankings for the games being played this weekend.
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... Tevin Coleman and Jerick McKinnon hardly got on the field in that game, so we're thinking they'll give Wilson another opportunity to be a heavily used featured guy. At least if he's having any success. If things bog down, then they might try to shake things up by using their other backs more. This is a good run defense he'll be working against. The Seahawks allowed at least 190 rushing yards in home games against the Vikings and Giants, with unheralded backs having big games (Alexander Mattison, Wayne Gallman), but more usually they've been able to clamp down on running games. Only four defenses have allowed fewer rushing yards. When the Seahawks beat San Francisco in Week 8, JaMycal Hasty started but ran for only 29 yards on 12 carries. Wilson himself has been inconsistent, with more downs than ups. Four times he's averaged over 6 yards per carry, but he's averaged fewer than 3.8 in all six of the other games that he's carried the ball. Wilson had a couple of decent games against Seattle back in 2018, running for 107 yards on 22 carries in those games. But no 49ers running back has run for more than 61 yards against Seattle since Week 2 of the 2017 season (that was Carlos Hyde, who's now playing against them). ... Seattle ranks last in pass defense, but we're putting a modest grade on C.J. Beathard. While the Seahawks have allowed a league-high 303 passing yards per week, they're playing a lot better now than they were earlier in the year. They did a good job on Sunday against Jared Goff, and they held Kyler Murray largely in check back in Week 11. The 49ers have some ability to attack through the air, but they're missing their two leading wide receivers. And Beathard seems to have more game manager in him than the other quarterbacks the 49ers have used this year. He passed for only 182 yards last week at Arizona, completing only 59 percent of his passes. On the plus side, he threw 3 touchdowns and no interceptions, and they won the game. Unlikely that they come out in this game with footballs flying. If they fall way behind there may be some catch-up stats in the second half, but we're thinking about 240 yards and 1-2 TDs. ... George Kittle is back, and he looked like his usual self in the Arizona game, throwing some killer blocks and fighting for extra yards after his 3 catches (for 69 yards). They had him on a pitch count, as he was only in the game for half of their plays, but they'll probably expand his role some in this game. With San Francisco having a lot of wide receiver injuries, he'll probably catch 5-plus passes. ... Both Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk are sidelined, so if you're looking for a warm-body wide receiver, here's a team to consider. Kendrick Bourne had his best game of the season in the earlier Seattle game, catching 8 passes for 81 yards. He also caught 4 for 42 and a touchdown in a Monday night game against Seattle a year ago. And Richie James had a huge game earlier this year when both Samuel and Aiyuk were out, catching 9 passes for 184 yards and a touchdown against Green Bay. With the front-line players out, these holdovers will get more looks, and there will be more of an effort to draw up plays to get them up. Bourne has more experience at the position. James had that one monster game, but in the three other games where he's played extensively (on the field for over 85 percent of their plays) he's caught only 4 passes for 47 yards, with no touchdowns (James was a full-time player last week but had only 1 ball thrown his way -- an incompletion). Bourne was last used heavily in the Washington game, and he caught 3 for 42 that week. ... Robbie Gould missed 2 field goals and an extra point against Arizona -- unusual in that he missed only 2 field goals and an extra point in his first 14 games combined. Kyle Shanahan says he's not worried about Gould's accuracy potentially becoming a problem in 2021. But Gould looks like a modest choice for Week 17. Only four teams have scored fewer kicking points than the 49ers this year, while Seattle defensively has been coming on. ... The 49ers Defense is a modest choice. Russell Wilson will take some sacks; eight years in a row he's been sacked over 40 times. But he doesn't tend to turn it over. In 143 career starts, he's thrown only 81 interceptions and lost only 24 fumbles. San Francisco has a lesser pass rush (with just 28 sacks in 15 games).