Monday Night DFS Single-Game Breakdown: Seahawks at 49ers
A single game contest with a free square—as the children are saying online—isn't the best for lineup creation purposes, but that's what we have here in the 49ers-Seahawks Monday night tilt.
George Kittle is expected to miss Week 10 with some sort of leg injury, vaulting backup tight end Ross Dwelley into the starting role. Dwelley, at a sleek $2,000 on DraftKings and $5,000 on FanDuel, will certainly be highly owned in cash games and tournaments Monday night. Dwelley played 70% of the 49ers' offensive snaps last week as George Kittle struggled through injury, drawing four targets. He caught all four for 29 yards. Seattle is hardly the worst matchup for tight ends: they allow 5.44 tight end catches per game and have allowed the fourth-most yardage to tight ends. What I'm saying is that it's Dwelley szn, though fading Kittle's replacement would be a power move for the differentiators among us.
With the Niners' implied total sitting at a juicy 26.5—the Niners are six-point home favorites—and Russell Wilson being such a prolific producer of fantasy points, most of my single-game lineups are going to feature both passers. Wilson has gone absolutely nuclear every time Seattle has faced negative game script, so we have hope that the Seahawks will be forced to run something close to a balanced attack, allowing Wilson to do his thing. On paper, this is a horror show matchup—the Niners allow the second-fewest schedule-adjusted points to QBs—but fading Wilson in a game that could pop would be a single game death sentence. Not to be dramatic.
The natural and most sensible stacking approach with Wilson would be Tyler Lockett -- who saw 18 targets in comeback mode last week against Tampa -- and DK Metcalf. The problem with this stack on FanDuel is that tossing Jimmy Garoppolo into said lineup wouldn't leave enough budget to fill the final roster spot. It's an entirely different story on DraftKings, where a Wilson-Metcalf-Lockett combo would leave room for Jimmy G a number of 49ers, including, of course, Dwelley. You could also throw Matt Breida into the mix with Garoppolo and the Seattle trio, though I'm not sure where the upside would come from. Breida has seen a meager 16 targets all season. If Jimmy G is going to put up a fat stat line, it's going to involve Emmanuel Sanders, the recipient of nine targets last week against Arizona. Seattle, allowing 34.1 adjusted fantasy points per game to receivers, isn't exactly an imposing matchup for a pass-catcher who could easily see volume in a game with a 47-point over/under.
Galaxy brain in this one tells us to deploy new Seahawk, Josh Gordon, who is expected to suit up against the 49ers. While we have no idea how many routes he'll run or how exactly he'll be used in Seattle's ultra-conservative offense, a shootout or comeback scenario for the Seahawks could involve a shot or two to the dominant downfield target. Here's the thing: DK and FD haven't cut us any slack with Gordon's pricing here. Probably that'll keep his ownership way down.
Tevin Coleman isn't the typical ball hog No. 1 back, making his price tag a little rich unless things break just right for game script purposes. Coleman, after seeing more than 20 touches in Week 6 and 7, he's seen 27 total touches in the past two games. Probably he would have carried the ball a whole lot more in Week 8 if the Niners' game against Carolina was competitive in the second half. Still, Coleman's Week 10 ceiling is fairly muted, per 4for4 projections, coming in at 21.3 points on FanDuel and 23.3 points on DraftKings. A contrarian move on FanDuel would look something like this: place Coleman in the captain's spot, assuming the 49ers have game script on their side, giving Coleman a shot at volume and touchdown opportunity, and jam the Wilson-Metcalf-Lockett grouping in there along with someone like Dwelley or Dante Pettis. Going this route on DraftKings would allow you to slide Chase McLaughlin (kicking for the Niners in Robbie Gould's absence) into your roster's final spot.
This marks a legit nightmare matchup for Chris Carson, or anyone who happens to play running back against the Niners. No defense has seen fewer runs tried against it and no defense has allowed fewer running back receptions. This is mostly due to the tidal wave of bad script 49ers opponents face. But if you think Seattle can hang with the 49ers on Monday, or even seize control of the game, Carson profiles as a smart play who might not have enormous ownership numbers. Runners average 4.7 yards per tote against San Francisco, and we saw Kenyan Drake go berserk (162 total yards) just a week ago as the Cardinals managed neutral game script against the Niners on Halloween. Slotting Carson into the captain's spot would be a high variance play that could separate you from (most of) the field.
