To me, Jeff Wilson looks like the best of the waiver wire possibilities this week. The injury to Eli Mitchell will elevate him into a larger role, and Wilson has been a capable replacement in previous seasons.
Wilson wasn’t great coming off the bench on Sunday, carrying 9 times for only 22 yards. But he’s been effective in the past. He had a 110-yard game against Atlanta last year, and I remember him running for 112 and 183 yards in wins at New England and Arizona two years ago.
Wilson was good enough in the preseason to beat out the two running backs the team has selected in the third round the last two years. The 49ers released Trey Sermon, while Tyrion Davis-Price wasn’t active on Sunday. If Davis-Price improves, I suppose it’s possible they’ll try him at some point, but he didn’t look like anything special (at least for now) in the preseason.
Wilson has been pretty impressive for a guy who showed up as an undrafted free agent back in 2018.
In his four-plus years, 17 times he’s had the opportunity to handle a starter-type load (which I’ll arbitrarily call here “double digit touches”). He’s averaged 61 rushing and 13 receiving yards in those games, with 14 TDs.
Wilson in those 17 games – a season’s worth of work – has run for 1,040 yards, with another 227 on 29 receptions.
The 49ers are talking about Mitchell missing about half of the season, and I expect we’ll see some top-15 running back games out of Wilson in the next two months.
| JEFF WILSON WITH DOUBLE-DIGIT TOUCHES | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Opp | Result | Rushing | Receiving | Yards | TD |
| 2018 | at Sea. | L 16-43 | 15-61-0 | 8-73-0 | 134 | 0 |
| 2018 | Den. | W 20-14 | 23-90-0 | 1-6-0 | 96 | 0 |
| 2018 | Chi. | L 9-14 | 11-27-0 | 2-11-0 | 38 | 0 |
| 2019 | at Cin. | W 41-17 | 10-34-2 | 0-0-0 | 34 | 2 |
| 2020 | at NYG | W 36-9 | 12-15-1 | 3-54-1 | 69 | 2 |
| 2020 | at N.E. | W 33-6 | 17-112-3 | 2-8-0 | 120 | 3 |
| 2020 | at LAR | W 23-20 | 12-40-0 | 0-0-0 | 40 | 0 |
| 2020 | Was. | L 15-23 | 11-31-1 | 1-13-0 | 44 | 1 |
| 2020 | at Dall. | L 33-41 | 16-60-1 | 0-0-0 | 60 | 1 |
| 2020 | at Ari. | W 20-12 | 22-183-0 | 1-21-1 | 204 | 1 |
| 2020 | Sea. | L 23-26 | 20-76-1 | 3-12-1 | 88 | 2 |
| 2021 | LAR | W 31-10 | 10-28-0 | 0-0-0 | 28 | 0 |
| 2021 | at Jac. | W 30-10 | 19-50-0 | 1-8-0 | 58 | 0 |
| 2021 | at Cin. | W 26-23 | 13-56-0 | 0-0-0 | 56 | 0 |
| 2021 | Atl. | W 31-13 | 21-110-1 | 2-9-0 | 119 | 1 |
| 2021 | at Ten. | L 17-20 | 14-45-1 | 3-12-0 | 57 | 1 |
| 2022 | at Chi. | L 10-19 | 9-22-0 | 2-8-0 | 30 | 0 |
—Ian Allan