Browns vs 49ers Fantasy Football Worksheet, Week 5

• George Kittle has run a pass route on just 34.8% of his snaps. Only Kyle Rudolph has a lower route run rate per snap (33.3%) out of the top-15 tight ends in snaps played this season. The rest of the group averages a route on 51.9% of their snaps.
• Kittle has been targeted on 31.8% of his routes run, which trails only Darren Waller (31.9%) on the season.
• San Francisco averages 137.7 more total yardage per game than their opponent, the highest rate in the league.
• The 49ers backfield is averaging 37.7 touches for 232.2 yards from scrimmage per game, the most in the league in both categories.
• Nick Chubb’s 92 touches are the most for a Browns running back through four games since Mike Pruitt in 1983.
• Baker Mayfield’s 14.0 yards per completions trails only Patrick Mahomes (14.2 yards).

Trust (spike production for that player)

• George Kittle: Despite Kittle being neutered by San Francisco pounding the football, he’s still managed to be a top-12 tight end scorer in all three weeks he’s played. When the 49ers have to press the scoreboard more often, Kittle’s ceiling will reemerge as he still ranks third among all tight ends in target share (24.7%). That could happen here and the Browns have allowed the two teams that use their tight ends frequently (the Titans and Ravens) to have lines of 7-79-1 and 6-62-2.  
• Nick Chubb: Chubb is just one of two backs (along with Dalvin Cook) to have 20 or more touches in all four weeks this season. His yards from scrimmage have gone up every week and has topped off his high-touch count with 131 and 183 yards the past two weeks. The 49ers do rank first in fantasy points allowed to backfields per game (13.5) to start the season, but also have faced the Buccaneers, Bengals, and Steelers run units. 

On the Cusp (proxy of a player’s average)

• Odell Beckham: Outside of a big Week 2 (6-161-1), Beckham as been the WR35 (7-71), WR43 (6-56), and WR70 (2-20). His opportunities still remain high (26.3% of the team targets). With all things similar, Beckham would line up across Richard Sherman on 40% of his pass routes as Sherman doesn’t travel. Against the 49ers last season, Beckham had four catches for 72 yards and two touchdowns while he had 7-108 in his lone meeting against Seattle while Sherman was there. Running 60 % of his routes against Emmanuel Moseley and K’Waun Williams shouldn’t move you off continuing to use Beckham despite his slower start. 
• Jarvis Landry: Sticking with Landry’s opportunities finally paid off last week as regression finally set in with eight catches for 167 yards on 10 targets. Landry has now seen 25% and 32.3% of the team targets the past two weeks with David Njoku sidelined. The 49ers have allowed 3-90-1 and 9-133-0 lines to slot wideouts over their past two games.  

Bust (down-week production for that player’s standards)

• Baker Mayfield: He’s yet to throw multiple touchdown passes in a game this season nor has finished higher than QB15. San Francisco has brought a lot of pressure early in the season (ninth in sack rate), which has been the early-season bugaboo for Mayfield. The Browns countered their protection issues with more heavy personnel use last week and Mayfield threw for a season-high 342 passing yards. The 49ers have yet to be heavily tested by opposing quarterback play, but Mayfield still is not entering the week with QB1 expectations. 
• 49ers WRs: The 49ers wide receivers are about as easy to sort out as their running backs. The difference is that the San Francisco backfield is desirable as the most productive in the league whereas the 49ers wideouts check in at 27th in the league in yardage per game as a unit (134 yards). Marquise Goodwin leads the team in routes run (61) followed by Deebo Samuel (57) and Richie James (53), but prior to their bye, Dante Pettis finally got involved with team-high five targets on just 14 pass routes. Tack on that both Denzel Ward and Greedy Williams could return this week for Cleveland, we’re better off just playing Garoppolo to cover the field. 
• Ricky Seals-Jones: Seals-Jones ran fewer pass routes (15) than Demetrius Harris last week (17) while the 49ers linebackers are all smaller and faster types that a built to defend tight ends well. The 49ers have started the season off allowing a league-low 4.6 yards per target to opposing tight ends.

If You Must (intriguing bench option or deeper league play) 

• 49ers RBs: What a productive group that we are unable to exploit for fantasy since it’s largely a sum of parts. Things could get marginally better in that regard if Tevin Coleman returns to the lineup this week. If Coleman plays, then he likely takes over as a mix of Raheem Mostert’s and Jeff Wilson’s roles. Over the previous two games, Mostert ran the most pass routes (22) while turning 16 and 12 touches into 151 and 79 yards. Wilson has been the red zone back, handling eight of the nine backfield opportunities inside of the 10-yard line. While that all sounds exhausting, the one player who remains in a similar role whether or not Coleman returns or not is Matt Breida. Breida has 15, 13, and 16 touches this season, but has just four targets and no goal-line opportunities to speak of.
• Jimmy Garoppolo: He had a stellar QB6 game in Week 2, but has been the QB25 and the QB29 in his other two games. He doesn’t run (nine yards on the season), which leaves him at the mercy of touchdown production to generate fantasy points. He also has at least one turnover in each game. That means we need to highlight using him in strong matchups. Cleveland has allowed multiple touchdown passes to every quarterback they’ve faced outside of Luke Falk, but Garoppolo takes a bit of a step of faith to elevate past QB2 status in the event those passing touchdowns don’t come.