Welcome to the NFC West version of Optimus Fantasy’s Team Previews! Because someone has to be last, today we’re looking at Mr. Irrelevant, the San Francisco 49ers. At least their QB knows all about how to deal with that. In order to best know where we’re going, we often need to study where we’ve been. With that in mind, I will cover what the team looked like in 2024, fantasy significant changes to philosophy and personnel, and what I expect from the team in 2025. Your fantasy drafts are coming. Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.

The San Francisco 49ers in 2024

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Team Stats
PROE	-2.20
4th Down Go For It!	15.38
Target GINI	0.5392
Rushing GINI	0.6052 –
Plays/Game: Offense	60.4

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Let’s start off by defining a few things, shall we?

Note: Any stat highlighted green with a “+” means it’s significantly, at least 1 standard deviation, above average. Any stat highlighted red with a “-“ means it’s significantly below average. If the stat is highlighted in blue and doesn’t have a symbol, it is within the standard deviation for that stat.

PROE – Pass Rate Over Expectation

2nd and 1 for the offense? Sure makes sense to run. 3rd and 12? Yup, absolutely reasonable to pass. PROE measures how often a team passed the ball when we would “expect” them to run. Such as on 2nd and 1. Obviously, this is our expectation, and part of the strategy is to do the unexpected. So it’s not a perfect encapsulation. However, over 17 games, this gives us a general idea of how an offensive coaching staff envisions their offensive strengths.

4th Down – Go For It!

It’s kinda just what it sounds like. Unlike PROE, there’s no “expectation” to this stat. Of all 4th downs, this is how often a team chose to go for it. Higher rates mean an offense has more chances to accumulate fantasy points. Conversely, it’s not as great for kickers. 

Target GINI

This is where my background in economics comes out. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, Target GINI is how concentrated a passing attack is among pass-catching targets. A Target GINI of 1 means every target went to one player. Perfectly evenly distributed targets among players result in a Target GINI of 0. 

Rushing GINI

The same as Target GINI, but for rushing. So a Rushing GINI of 1 means one player had 100% of the rushing attempts. A Rushing GINI of 0 means every player received an equal number of rushing attempts.

“Ok, I get what GINI is, but how is it helpful for us?” You know, you’re really great with these questions. Are you sure you’re not a fantasy football expert? At any rate, these metrics tell us how concentrated or siloed a team’s passing and rushing attacks are. For fantasy, we’re looking for them both to be as close to 1 as possible.

Plays/Game: Offense

Literally just what it sounds like, this is an average of how many plays per game a team’s offense runs. The idea is that more offensive plays equal more opportunities for our players to score fantasy points. Simple enough, right?

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Top Performers (HPPR 2024)
Brock Purdy	QB14
Jordan Mason	RB37
Isaac Guerendo	RB46
Jauan Jennings	WR25
Deebo Samuel	WR44
Ricky Pearsall	WR80
George Kittle	TE2
Jake Moody	K27

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Significant Offseason Changes from ’24 to ’25

Lost: Elijah Mitchell, Jordan Mason, Deebo Samuel

Added: Jordan Watkins, Jordan James, Brian Robinson

If it feels strange to count 4th and 5th round rookie selections as “significant,” it should give you an indication of just how banged up the 49ers are on the whole right now. 

San Francisco’s offensive line goes as the phenomenal, yet rapidly aging, Trent Williams goes. Williams defies Father Time every year, and as long as he continues to do so, the unit will be average at worst. I shudder to think what would happen if he misses any time.

Kyle Shanahan remains the head coach and welcomes Robert Saleh back to run the defense. We should expect more of what we’ve gotten used to from the 49ers on offense.

Looking Ahead to the San Francisco 49ers in 2025

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Lou’s Confidence Level 1 – 5
Brock Purdy	4
Christian McCaffrey, Isaac Guerendo	3
Ricky Pearsall, Jauan Jennings, Brandon Aiyuk	3
George Kittle	5
Jake Moody	1

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Lou’s 2025 HPPR Rankings
Brock Purdy	QB12
Christian McCaffrey	RB13
Isaac Guerendo	RB42
Ricky Pearsall	WR24
Jauan Jennings	WR31
Brandon Aiyuk	WR57
George Kittle	TE3
Jake Moody	–

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Week	Opponent	Expected W/L
1	@ Seattle	L
2	@ New Orleans	W
3	Arizona	W
4	Jacksonville	W
5	@ Los Angeles Rams	W
6	@ Tampa Bay	W
7	Atlanta	W
8	@ Houston	L
9	@ New York Giants	L
10	Los Angeles Rams	W
11	@ Arizona	L
12	Carolina	W
13	@ Cleveland	W
14	BYE	–
15	Tennessee	W
16	@ Indianapolis	W
17	Chicago	L

Lou’s projected 2025 “fantasy season” record: 11-5

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OK, Now For the Important (Non-Kicker) 49ers

“Lou, you didn’t rank Jake Moody!” Very astute, and you are correct. I’m a big believer in saying, “I don’t know,” when someone asks me about things I’m ignorant about. I’m kicker-dumb. So if you’re here looking for insight on kickers, I’m very sorry. I don’t think Moody will be the 49ers’ kicker for long. How’s that for a rank?

I know, I need to start off by addressing my Christian McCaffrey rank, because I’m well outside of consensus. To start off with, McCaffrey is obviously on another level from other RBs in the NFL, and he’s looked phenomenal throughout training camp. I’m not shocked. We need to deal with the hobbled elephant in the room, though. Christian McCaffrey has tendinitis in both of his Achilles tendons.

For those of you unfamiliar with tendinitis, that’s not something that goes away, especially not as a professional athlete. You can manage it to the best of your ability, but it’s always there, and there’s no way to know if it’s too late until it’s too late. This is why I have him behind so many other RBs. I know I could be wrong, and my ranking means I won’t have McCaffrey on any of my teams this year. I’m OK with it if he blows up as the RB1 and I miss out as a result of my ranking. Just be sure you’ve done that calculus for yourself before you choose to take him, OK? That’s all I ask. Alright, I’ll get out of Dad-mode now. Go ahead, get outta here, you scamp!

That’s the big point of interest, obviously, but I cannot overstate just how banged up the 49ers’ skill position players are right now. As of right now, Jordan Watkins, Brandon Aiyuk, Juaun Jennings, Isaiah Hodgins, Jordan James, Patrick Taylor, and Corey Kiner (now waived) are all missing practice due to various injuries. Even Isaac Guerendo was on this list until a couple of days ago. The point is: Make sure you’re up to speed on the current injury reports for the 49ers before your drafts. It makes a world of difference.

Aiyuk’s injury, in particular, is concerning. He tore his ACL during the 2024 season, and he’s recovering from that; however, he won’t be ready for Week 1. Currently, the 49ers are debating putting him on the PUP list to open the year, which would keep him out for at least the first 4 games of the year. From there, he would need to overcome the presence of George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey for certain, and probably Ricky Pearsall and Juan Jennings as well. 

The 49ers just acquired Brian Robinson for the price of a ham sandwich. I mean, for a 6th-round draft pick. Not exactly premium draft capital, but it does happen to match what they got in return from the Vikings when they dealt Jordan Mason to them. It will take time for Robinson to get up to speed with the 49ers, so don’t expect him to come in like gangbusters. However, Robinson makes more sound choices and decisions as an RB than does fellow backup Isaac Guerendo. It’s reasonable to expect Robinson to be the “new Jordan Mason” in San Francisco. Perhaps even more importantly, the 49ers now have a healthy RB in the fold, and that’s not nothing considering how their summer has gone.

If There is a League Winner in San Francisco, It’s…

George Kittle.

If it feels strange to talk about a highly ranked TE as a potential league winner, I completely understand. I think it’s a bit out of the norm as well. That’s how influential Kittle could be on your season. Allow me to unpack it.

As I’ve mentioned at length by this point, the 49ers are dealing with a myriad of injuries. You know who isn’t? George Kittle. So the odds that Kittle will be a focus of the passing offense while these other players are all banged up are pretty high. What’s more is that any time Kittle has been a focus of the offense, he’s produced at a TE1 clip. That’s not “a TE1” as in a top-12 TE, but THE TE1 overall. When you can get a player at TE who gives you a positional advantage at a discount, that’s what league-winners are made of.

Deep League Draft Target

I’ve talked a lot about Christian McCaffrey’s Achilles tendinitis up through this point, but I’m going to talk about it a little more. One of the ways to manage it is to reduce wear and tear. In other words, for the first time in a long time, we could and should see McCaffrey share the workload at RB. To that end, we need to know the name Jordan James. Others are higher on the depth chart ahead of him; however, he fits the Kyle Shanahan system better than any RB they’ve had recently.

With an ADP of 287 according to FantasyPros, Jordan James is all but free in leagues.

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Lou Brunson is a Senior Analyst and THE social media brains for Optimus Fantasy. Find his dynasty stylings on right here and at draftbuddy.com.