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Our all-out assault on uncertainty rages on this week with a look at the 49ers’ target distribution and backfield splits as the team heads into a season where two very different quarterbacks will (likely) alternate at the helm of Kyle Shanahan’s offense.
I asked NBC Sports’ Matt Maiocco about how the Niners’ pass-catching pecking order might shake out and how the team’s rushing attempts could be divided up in 2021, based on his coverage of offseason workouts, training camp, and the general observations of an NFL beat writer documenting the finer details of a team readying itself for a harrowing 17-game season. [[ad:athena]]
Will We See Lance A Lot, Or A Little?
Shanahan this summer has been alternately dismissive and agitated when asked about Trey Lance’s chances of starting the season as the Niners’ starting QB. Maybe he’s playing coy when he says Jimmy Garoppolo is the Week 1 starter, like he did in the months leading up to draft day, when most of the western world believed there was a decent chance the 49ers would take Mac Jones with the No. 3 pick (there wasn’t).
And maybe he’s not. Maybe Shanahan is being honest after seeing Lance complete 13 of his 28 attempts for 230 yards and three touchdowns, posting a Pro Football Focus passing grade just a hair north of Nick Foles. Maybe the kid’s not ready.
Maiocco told me even if Lance isn’t ready to take over as the team’s starter by the second week of September, Shanahan and offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel don’t plan on letting the explosive athlete flounder on the sideline while Jimmy G manages the offense.
The team, per Maiocco, plans to “sprinkle Lance into the offense from the first game — assuming, of course, Jimmy Garoppolo opens the season as the starter. There are many run plays in the playbook the 49ers will execute only if Lance is on the field. The 49ers will lean heavily on [run-pass options] with Lance on the field to take advantage of one thing he does exceptionally well: Run the ball.”
We haven’t seen much from Lance the rusher in his first two preseason tilts. He’s taken off once for eight yards on 37 drop backs. The rookie’s running acumen can hardly be questioned though: He logged 1,100 rushing yards and 14 scores on the ground as a sophomore at North Dakota State (along with a cool 143 rushing yards in his only 2020 game), displaying toughness and quickness that will surely fill up the stat sheet in the pros.
“I’d expect Lance to get on the field and also use the threat of the run to push the ball down the field,” Maiocco said. “Shanahan will find ways to carve out packages against specific opponents to have success running and passing. And the more success Lance enjoys, the more he will play.”
Garoppolo’s fantasy usefulness -- whatever it may be -- will probably be undercut by Lance’s presence as a potential short yardage and goal line weapon. Neither Garoppolo nor Lance will be startable in fantasy unless and until Lance seizes the starting job.
The best (only) way to play it in redraft formats without blowing a bunch of draft capital on QB: Take Lance at his tenth round ADP, grab a quarterback with a good early-season schedule (Sam Darnold or Kirk Cousins, perhaps) and pray to your preferred deity that Shanahan comes around on the rookie sooner rather than later.
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The Backfield Nightmare Cometh
Probably not even Kyle Shanahan can offer full clarity on who will get the bulk of the Niners’ backfield touches on a given week, much less a whole season. Maiocco said Shanahan, as per usual, will take a “hot hand” approach to the backfield in 2021, rotating primarily between two runners with different styles and strengths.
Raheem Mostert, who averaged 13.8 rushing attempts in his seven full games last year, will get first crack at the starter’s gig. Not that it means much. “Rarely, it seems, does the 49ers running back who starts out as the main guy end up being Kyle Shanahan’s leading rusher,” Maiocco said, adding that Mostert is a superior pass catcher to Trey Sermon, the team’s third round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
Though Mostert is the team’s “dynamic, big-play threat” out of the backfield, Maiocco said Mostert and Sermon will be treated as “interchangeable pieces” in the 49ers offense. It seems Mostert’s speed and ability to run away from defenders won’t hold much weight if Sermon proves productive and consistent in Shanahan’s system.
“Sermon should be able to thrive in this running attack, though he is not there yet,” Maiocco said.
Sermon got the pre-draft blessing of 49ers running backs coach Bobby Turner, a longtime running back whisperer for the Shanahan family. “His reads, his instincts, his ability to communicate and retain — I like all that,” Turner said of Sermon, who, according to Turner, needs to improve his “long speed.”
Maiocco mentioned rookie RB Elijah Mitchell as “someone to watch later in the season,” though an abductor injury could put him on the sideline come Week 1. Mitchell was, by most accounts, an underrated draft prospect, showing off during his combine workout with a 97th percentile 40-yard dash time, an 89th percentile burst score, and an 86th percentile speed score. At 23, he’s old for a rookie; that certainly doesn’t mean he couldn’t produce as a featured back in Shanahan’s offense.
A rash of backfield injuries in San Francisco -- as we saw in 2020 -- could make Mitchell one of the most sought-after waiver claims in fantasy football this season. There is, of course, the expected November return of Jeff Wilson, who injured his knee in late May. That could complicate Mitchell’s already-narrow path to carries.
We have clarity on one aspect of the 49ers offense: They want to run the ball, and run the ball a lot -- 500 times, in fact, according to The Athletic’s Matt Barrows. A mere three teams -- the Titans, Patriots, and Ravens -- rushed more than 500 times in 2020. In 2019, Baltimore was the only team to log more than 500 rushes. A split backfield would be a slightly less terrifying fantasy nightmare if the Niners had that sort of rushing volume. With an early-season Lance takeover, it could happen.
Sermon’s seventh-round average draft position says fantasy managers are unabashedly bullish on the rookie runner. Mostert, however, isn’t going anywhere.
Aiyuk’s Dominance and Kittle’s Touchdown Problem
Second-year wideout Brandon Aiyuk has reportedly been a favorite target of Lance this month, just as he was last year for the clown car of 49ers quarterbacks that cycled in and out of the starting lineup.
Aiyuk dominated the team’s targets largely because he became the No. 1 receiver by default. Deebo Samuel couldn’t stay on the field and George Kittle missed half the season, swiftly turning Aiyuk into a target magnet. He drew a jaw-dropping 29 percent target share (and 38 percent of the 49ers’ air yards) in games he played during the second half of the season. That included a ten-target outing in Week 8, 14 looks in Week 10, 16 targets in Week 14, and 13 in Week 15.
Barring another run of catastrophic injuries for the Niners, Aiyuk won’t see anything close to that opportunity in 2021.
Maiocco described Aiyuk -- who had an “outstanding camp” -- as “a slightly better option in the passing game” than Samuel and the rest of the 49ers’ wideouts. “While I don’t think Aiyuk will see significantly more targets than Samuel, I do think things will skew slightly in that direction,” he added. “If everyone remains healthy, Aiyuk and Kittle will be the team’s top two pass-catchers. But, like the running backs, there will certainly be weeks where the opportunities will present themselves to Samuel to have a big game.”
Questions about how the team’s offense would change with Lance under center should rattle around in your head if you’re dead set on drafting Aiyuk at his fifth round ADP. In the face of runaway negative game script for much of the year, the Niners in 2020 had a neutral pass rate of 58 percent, the 13th lowest in the NFL. That in itself isn’t concerning. But wait, there’s more.
The team’s pass rate dropped to 49 percent when they had a lead of at least one point, and 46 percent when they led by at least four points. This, in short, means Shanahan wants to establish the run and establish it hard when he can. There will be no excessive passing in his offense -- that much is clear. This isn’t the best news for Aiyuk and his potential to repeat as a target hog. A conservative, relatively run-heavy system with Lance scaring the wits out of defensive coordinators with his running ability is a less-than-ideal formula for Aiyuk to prove a value at his WR22 average draft position (Tyler Lockett and D.J. Moore are worlds more appealing at a similar ADP). He’s likely being drafted near his fantasy ceiling unless the 49ers suffer another lost season in which they’re forced to the air time and again.
I find Samuel’s WR37 ADP more palatable. A year without a string of soft tissue injuries in a Lance-led offense could be just what Deebo needs for the team to use him as a multi-dimensional threat. This is the part of the analysis where I hedge and say I would happily take Tyler Boyd, Mike Williams, or Mecole Hardman at a similar ADP.
George Kittle doesn’t score touchdowns. It’s a weird phenomenon considering Kittle is a massive, ultra-aggressive pass catcher who profiles as an ideal red zone threat. The wild-haired one has 14 touchdowns in 52 career games, or 0.26 TDs per game. Kittle -- incredibly, bewilderingly, inconceivably -- has five scores over his past 27 games.
My question for Maiocco was simple: Why?
“There has been an element of bad luck through the years, with some of his scoring plays nullified by penalties,” he said of Kittle’s touchdown woes. “With better weapons on the outside, that should enable Kittle to work in more one-on-one situations in the middle of the field. That is an area that will be a focus for the team’s red zone offense this season: Create favorable matchups and mismatches for Kittle near the goal line.”
Kittle -- a bulldozer of a blocker near the goal line -- simply hasn’t been used as a pass catcher near the end zone paint in recent seasons. In his eight games last season, Kittle saw three targets inside the 10 yard line. The 2019 season was a little better: Kittle had nine targets inside the 10, tied for eighth most in the league. He nabbed five of those balls for two touchdowns.
Those going in on Kittle at his third round ADP in 12-team leagues will need to sit down before reading Maiocco’s 2021 Kittle projection: “It would not surprise me if Kittle gets into the end zone 10 times this season.”
In a potentially low-volume passing attack, Kittle -- like most tight ends in fantasy -- is going to need an influx of TDs to justify his ADP.
