Seahawks at 49ers
On paper, this appears to be one of the most lopsided matchups of Wild Card weekend. San Francisco is favored by nearly 10 points and they have been gaining serious steam as one of the favorites in the NFC.
These two teams met in Week 15 and the 49ers pulled out a 21-13 win. That game seems like a reasonable blueprint for what we could see on Saturday. Seattle was able to move the ball, but struggled to put up points as San Francisco played good defense and mistake-free offense to get the win.
From a fantasy perspective, it doesn’t get any better than Christian McCaffrey, who faces a soft Seattle run defense. Since he joined San Francisco, CMC has been the RB2 in total scoring and is primed to be the focal point of the offense for as long as the 49ers remain alive in the playoffs. The offense will continue to be led by rookie sensation Brock Purdy, who helped the 49ers close the season on an incredible winning streak and remains undefeated as a starter. The team is also getting healthier around him, with both Deebo Samuel and Elijah Mitchell returning to the lineup last week.
Even though George Kittle is a negative regression candidate, he should still be treated as a high-level DFS option due to his chemistry with Purdy and ability to create explosive plays at any time. All of this target competition could come at the expense of Brandon Aiyuk, but even he has a strong weekly ceiling when this offense is rolling.
Seattle snuck into the playoffs thanks to the Lions beating the Packers in the final game of the regular season. The Seahawks can already count this year as a great success with how much they have exceeded expectations. Despite the Vegas line, Pete Carroll will have his guys believing they can take down their division rivals.
Geno Smith had a tremendous season, but has faltered a bit down the stretch. Since Week 14, he hasn’t thrown for more than 250 yards in a game and has just one multi-TD game in that stretch as well. A matchup with the vaunted San Francisco defense isn’t likely to result in a big fantasy day, but if he can at least play a clean game, like he did when these teams last met, it should allow Seattle to keep this one close.
The primary injury concern for Seattle is RB Kenneth Walker, who missed practice on Wednesday but is still expected to play through his ankle injury. Both he and Tyler Lockett have been playing through injuries to end the season, but they will need all their weapons to pull off the upset. Lockett specifically could be key in this matchup. In the two games where these teams met in the regular season, Lockett put up 16 catches for 175 yards while fellow WR D.K. Metcalf only totaled 11 catches for 90 yards.
From a betting perspective, I fully expect San Francisco to win this game, but I don’t like taking a side when the spread is this wide. However, there are a few player props that I do like. The overs on Tyler Lockett’s receiving yards (60.5) and receptions (5.0) on Underdog Fantasy Pick’Em look particularly good to me considering his recent history against the San Francisco defense.
