The Worksheet, a comprehensive fantasy football preview by Rich Hribar, breaks down everything you need to know about the Week 12 matchup between the 49ers and Seahawks on Thanksgiving.
Find a breakdown of every Week 12 NFL game in our Worksheet Hub.
| San Francisco | Rank | @ | Seattle | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -6.5 | Spread | 6.5 | ||
| 24.75 | Implied Total | 18.25 | ||
| 27.9 | 3 | Points/Gm | 21.6 | 16 |
| 15.7 | 1 | Points All./Gm | 21.8 | 19 |
| 60.1 | 27 | Plays/Gm | 60.2 | 26 |
| 62.0 | 9 | Opp. Plays/Gm | 67.7 | 30 |
| 6.4 | 2 | Off. Yards/Play | 5.4 | 11 |
| 4.9 | 6 | Def. Yards/Play | 5.1 | 14 |
| 50.42% | 2 | Rush% | 39.04% | 27 |
| 49.58% | 31 | Pass% | 60.96% | 6 |
| 32.90% | 2 | Opp. Rush % | 40.18% | 9 |
| 67.10% | 31 | Opp. Pass % | 59.82% | 24 |
- San Francisco has scored 63.9% of the points scored in their games this season, the highest rate in the league.
- 67.4% of the San Francisco scoring plays have been touchdowns, fourth in the league.
- 45.2% of the Seattle scoring plays have been touchdowns, 27th in the league.
- The 49ers have scored a touchdown on 30.6% of their drives, second in the league.
- The Seahawks have scored a touchdown on 13.2% of their drives over their past six games, 27th in the league.
- 78.1% of the San Francisco set of downs have led to a new set of downs or a touchdown, the highest rate in the league.
- The 49ers have a takeaway on 18.4% of opponent possessions, the highest rate in the league.
- Seattle has converted 12.0% fewer of their third downs than their opponents, 31st in the league.
- San Francisco has 19 more passing plays that have gained 20-plus yards than their opponent, the largest differential in the league.
Trust = spike production for that player
Quarterback
Brock Purdy: The discourse centering around concern for Purdy has quickly died down.
Purdy has come out of the bye with QB6 (23.8 points) and QB2 (26.7 points) scoring weeks.
He connected on 21-of-25 passes for 333 yards and three touchdowns on Sunday against Tampa Bay.
With a perfect 158.3 rating, he joined Joe Montana and Steve Young as San Francisco quarterbacks to post a perfect rating in a game.
Purdy has now completed over 70% of his passes in four straight games.
He has thrown for over 11.0 yards per pass attempt in three straight games.
It is hard to find a passing efficiency stat where Purdy is not at or near the league leaders, which is what keeps him in play as a floor-based QB1.
This week should provide more resistance than what he has faced over his past four starts.
Seattle is allowing 6.8 yards per pass attempt (11th). Purdy has only faced two defenses higher: Cleveland and Dallas.
Since Week 4, they are allowing 6.3 Y/A, fifth in the league. Seattle has allowed one QB1 scorer over that span.
The Seahawks are a full zone coverage team.
They are playing zone coverage on 82.7% of passing plays, third in the league.
They have played Cover-3 on 40.7% of passing plays, fifth in the league, while playing Cover-6 on 17.5% (fifth) and quarters on 19.5% (11th).
Purdy has devoured Cover-3, completing 76.7% of his passes (second) for 9.1 Y/A (third).
Against both Cover-4 and Cover-6, he has been even more efficient, completing a league-high 81.4% of his passes for a league-best 10.5 Y/A but zero touchdowns.
In two games against Seattle last season, Purdy completed 35-of-56 passes (62.5%) for 549 yards (9.8 Y/A) with five touchdowns and zero interceptions.
Seattle only sacked him twice.
Geno Smith: Smith suffered an elbow injury Sunday that forced him from the game for a stretch before he returned.
His status is up in the air for Thursday night, but we will enter the week under the premise that he will try to play through the injury and then adjust should we need to if Drew Lock ends up starting (which nobody wants).
Smith’s status means more to the rest of the offense than it does to his fantasy outlook. Not only could Smith aggravate his injury and risk leaving the game, but he also has just two QB1 scoring weeks this season. In a tougher matchup, he is firmly a QB2.
San Francisco is fourth in the league in pressure rate (40.4%).
Smith has been pressured on 39.6% of his dropbacks, 25th in the league.
When Smith has been pressured this season, he is averaging 5.1 yards per pass attempt, 26th in the league.
San Francisco is second in the league in passing points allowed per attempt (0.288).
In three games against San Francisco a year ago, Smith did complete 73.4% of his passes, but he also averaged just 6.0 air yards per target in those games.
As a byproduct, he threw for just 6.3 Y/A in those games, with three touchdowns and two interceptions.
Running Back
Christian McCaffrey: In a season filled with volatile fantasy running backs, McCaffrey has been the lone constant.
With 26 touches for 103 total yards on Sunday against the Buccaneers, he posted his seventh game with at least 100 total yards.
A week after having his 17-game touchdown streak snapped, he immediately found the end zone on the opening drive for his 14th touchdown of the season.
McCaffrey has one week this season in which he was not an RB1 scorer.
He lives at the top of the food chain for fantasy running backs.
The Seattle run defense has faltered over the past month.
Over the past four weeks, they have allowed 5.1 YPC to running backs (29th) with a 63.5% success rate on those carries (25th).
Running backs have five rushing scores against them over that span.
On top of that, Seattle is 25th in receiving points allowed per game to running backs (10.8).
Zach Charbonnet: Charbonnet will have his shot at leading this backfield on Thursday with Kenneth Walker sidelined.
Charbonnet turned 21 touches into 69 yards on Sunday.
Like most backs in his season-long role as a change-of-pace option, his efficiency was tougher to roll over into a full-time workload. Charbonnet rushed 15 times for 47 yards (3.1 YPC).
But he did manage to catch six passes for 22 yards, which provides a higher floor for him as a volume-based RB2 in what is a tougher matchup on paper.
San Francisco is allowing 9.0 rushing points per game (fifth) to running backs but has allowed 9.5 receiving points per game (22nd) to the position.
They have not allowed an RB1 scoring week to a back without a touchdown. Only two backs have cleared 52 rushing yards in a game against them this season.
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Wide Receiver
Brandon Aiyuk: Aiyuk only had six targets on Sunday, but he more than maxed out his opportunity, catching five of those looks for 156 yards. That includes a 76-yard touchdown, his second score in as many weeks.
Aiyuk has been one of the league’s best wide receivers this season.
He is averaging 3.43 yards per route run, which trails only Tyreek Hill (4.06).
Aiyuk has accounted for 42.8% of the San Francisco air yards (WR8).
He is just forced to live on hyper-efficiency due to the nature of this offense, which sometimes creates a gap in his fantasy output compared to his talent level. Aiyuk is a WR1 talent in a volatile WR2 fantasy role.
That is why he only has three WR1 scoring weeks this season.
Despite his incredible efficiency metrics, Aiyuk is averaging 26.9 routes (WR73) and 6.8 targets (WR36) per game, which impacts his counting stats for fantasy football.
This will be a great strength-on-strength matchup.
Aiyuk has a team-high 293 yards receiving against Cover-3 and is posting 4.44 yards per route run against those Cover-4 and Cover-6 looks that Seattle uses as secondary coverages.
But Seattle has also been strong against wide receivers at full strength defensively. They are allowing a league-low 9.8 yards per reception to wide receivers since Week 4 and 113.4 yards per game to wideouts (fourth) over that span.
During that stretch, the only wideouts to clear 70 yards against them have been Ja’Marr Chase (80) and Amari Cooper (89).
