The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 3 matchup between the 49ers and Giants on Thursday night.
Find a breakdown of every Week 3 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.
| NY Giants | Rank | @ | San Francisco | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10.5 | Spread | -10.5 | ||
| 17.25 | Implied Total | 27.75 | ||
| 15.5 | 28 | Points/Gm | 30.0 | 3 |
| 34.0 | 32 | Points All./Gm | 15.0 | 3 |
| 66.0 | 13 | Plays/Gm | 60.0 | 23 |
| 57.5 | 7 | Opp. Plays/Gm | 69.5 | 24 |
| 4.6 | 25 | Off. Yards/Play | 6.3 | 2 |
| 5.6 | 27 | Def. Yards/Play | 4.5 | 5 |
| 41.67% | 16 | Rush% | 51.67% | 5 |
| 58.33% | 17 | Pass% | 48.33% | 28 |
| 51.30% | 29 | Opp. Rush % | 23.02% | 1 |
| 48.70% | 4 | Opp. Pass % | 76.98% | 32 |
- San Francisco is averaging 32.0 points per game over Brock Purdy‘s nine complete games, scoring 30 or more points in seven of those games.
- San Francisco is averaging a first down or touchdown on 32.3% of their early-down plays, second in the NFL.
- The 49ers are averaging a league-high 5.6 yards per rushing play.
- The Giants are the only team without a sack or takeaway through two weeks.
- The Giants have allowed 14 sacks plus turnovers through two games, tied with the Bears for the most in the league.
- The 49ers have allowed a first down or a touchdown on a league-high 39.1% of running back rushes after a league-low 17.2% rate in 2022.
Trust = spike production for that player
Quarterback
Brock Purdy: Purdy had a higher completion rate (68.0%) and more yards per pass attempt (8.2 Y/A) on Sunday than he had in Week 1, but since he failed to throw a touchdown pass for just the second time over his nine full games as a starter, he closed the Week as QB21 (14.7 points).
Purdy did not play a completely clean game, missing a walk-in touchdown to Deebo Samuel and another long gain to Brandon Aiyuk, but Purdy once again showed a solid floor to be used a high-end QB2 option that can flirt with back-end QB1 production if the 49ers are pressed.
You won’t go broke with Purdy in 1QB formats, but he has finished higher than QB10 now just twice over his seven regular season starts. This past weekend was the first time over that span he failed to reach 15 fantast points, but just by a whisker.
The latter is a tough outcome to bet on with San Francisco as massive home favorites, but this is a strong matchup to attack for efficiency.
The Giants are an aggressive defense that wants to get after the opposing passer.
They have blitzed 36.8% of the time (third highest) and played man coverage 33.0% (fifth) of the time. But they are the only team in the NFL without a sack through two games and are 21st in the NFL in pressure rate (38.1%) when they do blitz.
When Purdy has been blitzed but the defense has not gotten pressure over his short career, he has completed 38-of-51 passes (74.5%) for 455 yards (8.9 Y/A).
A lot will fall on the Giants finally getting home. Purdy can still be impacted by pressure if they can get there.
On 23 dropbacks this season when pressured, Purdy has completed 52.6% of his passes for 6.5 Y/A compared to a 74.3% completion rate and 8.6 Y/A when he has been kept clean.
That trend has followed him from his rookie season sample, but getting to him has been easier said than done.
Daniel Jones: Week 2 started off just as poorly as Week 1 did for Jones, but he rebounded with a mammoth flurry of fantasy points in the second half to pace the position in scoring (30.7 points) for the week.
In the first half Sunday against the Cardinals, Jones was just 9-of-16 for 62 yards (3.9 Y/A) with an interception as the Giants were down 0-20 at the break.
In the second half, Jones was 17-of-21 for 259 yards (12.3 Y/A) with two touchdown passes while adding a rushing score.
It took dire circumstances to bring forth that production, but it was refreshing to see Jones attack vertically, something we have not seen often.
Jones ended the game with 9.4 air yards per pass attempt, his highest rate in a game since Week 17 of the 2021 season. On throws 10 yards or further downfield, Jones was 8-of-12 for 199 yards with a touchdown.
Coming off that comeback, Jones is rewarded with a tough matchup in a short week.
This offense will likely be without Saquon Barkley, which could mean Jones has more passing volume and creative use in the running game, but Jones had just one QB1 scoring week in 2022 against a top-10 defense.
San Francisco has opened the year allowing a QB21 scoring week to Kenny Pickett (9.7 points) and a QB23 week to Matthew Stafford (13.9 points).
If the 49ers can get home, Jones has only completed 12-of-23 passes for 4.0 Y/A and two interceptions under pressure to start the 2023 season.
Jones has more rushing capability than both of those options to provide some potential cushion, but this is a spot where we are entering with limited expectations for a spike week. Jones is a QB2 for fantasy purposes.
Running Back
Christian McCaffrey: McCaffrey played 100% of the snaps on Sunday, producing 135 yards from scrimmage on 23 touches.
He also kept his touchdown streak going with a 14-yard run to open the game. That is now the 11th-consecutive game that McCaffrey has reached the end zone with the 49ers going back to last year.
We are locking in McCaffrey as a front-end RB1 against a Giants defense that has allowed strong fantasy lines to Tony Pollard (82 yards and two touchdowns) and James Conner (106 yards and a touchdown) to open the year.
The only thing keeping McCaffrey from being a full-on TRUST play is that in a short week as a huge favorite coming off 100% of the snaps, this would be a spot for the 49ers to provide CMC some relief.
That said, when the 49ers played on Thursday Night a year ago, McCaffrey had 32 touches, his most with the team.
If the 49ers do establish a scoring margin early on, it is likely McCaffrey stays involved.
Giants RBs: The Giants will likely be without Saquon Barkley for at least this week, who has accounted for 84.4% of the team running back touches.
With Barkley out, Matt Breida (18 snaps) and Gary Brightwell (13 snaps) are the only other running backs to play in the first two games on offense. We could see Eric Gray log some playing time, but Breida is the back expected to handle the crux of the touches here.
The 49ers did just allow 100 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns to Kyren Williams on his 20 touches to keep the lights on here for output. That was the first time that San Francisco allowed a running back to reach 100 yards in a game since Christian McCaffrey in Week 5 a year ago before he joined their team.
I would bet against Breida finding that kind of fortune here attached to a 10.5-point road underdog on a team with a 17-point implied team total, but if you are thin at running back and need to throw touches at the wall for an RB2/FLEX spot and see what points you get, that is the type of play Breida is in Week 3.
Wide Receiver
Deebo Samuel: Samuel continued his history of tormenting the Rams on Sunday, securing 6-of-9 targets for 63 yards receiving with five rushes for 38 yards and a touchdown on the ground. His 11-yard rushing score was extremely close to being reception but was ruled a lateral.
Samuel also nearly had a 39-yard walk-in touchdown behind the defense but was overthrown.
This matchup carried more of a signal to be a Brandon Aiyuk game, but Samuel gets a bump with Aiyuk ruled out.
With Aiyuk off the field since the start of last season, Samuel has drawn 12 targets on just 23 pass routes.
Extending that out into 2021, Samuel has been targeted 36 times on 90 routes run (40.0%) with Aiyuk sidelined.
Deebo climbs up to fringe WR1 status with Aiyuk ruled out.
