Deebo Samuel

Mike Evans has had a phenomenal year despite dealing with multiple injuries so far this season. He has a career high 4.2 yards per route run and ranks 1st in the NFL with 0.21 first downs per route run. His biggest impact can be seen in yards per play. The 49ers offense average 7.2 yards per play when he’s on the field and only 5.3 when he’s off. If the 49ers are going to make a Super Bowl run this year it will be incredibly important to keep the 33rd year old veteran healthy.

Deebo Samuel will also miss this week’s game against the Las Vegas Raiders. Samuel has 15 or more ppr points in 3 of 4 games he didn’t leave with an injury this year, and he’s wide receiver #6 in fantasy points per route run. With him and Evans out, George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey should be the focal points of the passing offense this week.

Mike Evans left week 6 with an Achilles injury after recording 3 receptions for 94 yards on only 16 routes. That’s a 31% target rate and an elite 0.72 expected fantasy points per route run. The veteran currently ranks 3rd in the NFL in yards per route run behind only Zay Flowers and Jaxon Smith-Njigba.

Deebo Samuel, Demarcus Robinson and De’Zhaun Stribling were all inactive for this game leaving Jacob Cowing, Jordan Watkins, and Brandin Cooks as the remaining available receivers for the 49ers. Christian Kirk‘s practice window opened last week and reports are that there’s a chance he’s available in week 7.

David Lombardi reports rookie RB Kaelon Black was added to the injury report as limited participant Thursday with a groin issue. Black surprised many in Week 1 by playing 43% of snaps, while rushing for 65 yards on 14 attempts and adding a 5-yard reception. Christian McCaffrey praised Black this week in an interview, likening his ability to have the impact for him that David Montgomery had last year on Jahmyr Gibbs and Tyler Allgeier had on Bijan Robinson to keep them fresh.

Black was a big riser after Week 1’s surprising performance and one of the biggest waiver adds of the week. Fantasy football manager’s will need to keep an eye on tomorrow’s practice report to see Black’s level of participation in order to get a better idea if he will be able to play this weekend.

We finally have a timeline for De’Zhaun Stribling’s ankle injury, and its not great. While Maiocco says the team believes he will return this season, the 10 week timeline would see Stribling returning week 12 for their bout against the Seattle Seahawks, about 2-3 weeks before the fantasy football playoffs begin in most leagues, assuming the team sticks to the timeline and there are no setbacks.

In the meantime, teammates Demarcus Robinson and Deebo Samuel will likely see increased opportunities after logging 63% and 41% of total snaps against Los Angeles, trailing only Mike Evans‘ 75% snap share. Despite the large gap in overall snap counts, Deebo ran only two fewer routes than Robinson, and was targeted at a much higher rate. The target hierarchy will get murkier after week 5, when Christian Kirk is eligible to come off of IR, so fantasy managers should continue to monitor how these players are deployed in the coming weeks if they hope to take advantage of Stribling’s vacated targets.

Rapoport reports that De’Zhaun Stribling has a deltoid sprain in his ankle which is expected to keep him out at least a month. Stribling is seeking more opinions, and surgery is a possibility if it doesn’t improve on its own – which would shelve him for the rest of the 2026 season. Either way, this is already a brutal loss for the 49ers after already losing Ricky Pearsall for the season with a PCL injury.

Fantasy Football managers will have to hope Stribling can avoid surgery. After being a surprise early 2nd round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, Stribling has impressed enough all offseason to rise up to No. 55 in PlayerProfiler’s WR dynasty rankings. At least for now, it’s next man up in San Francisco.