2022 San Francisco 49ers Odds, Schedule, & Fantasy Football Team Preview
Trey Lance truthers unite. Jimmy G is out as the 49ers have fully committed to Lance who was the third overall pick in last year’s draft. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how this QB change impacts offense and explore how to handle this team in DFS and betting markets.
Using RotoGrinders NFL 2022 projections, we review all 32 NFL Teams this summer and uncover all the best bets and league-winning picks we can find. Among the questions we will look at to answer in this article:
- San Francisco 49ers Betting Odds: Can Trey Lance help improve on San Francisco’s 10-win 2021 season?
- Team Overview: Does a good offense mean lots of points?
- Fantasy Football Drafts: How much value can be mined out of an elite rushing offense?
Be sure to check out all the great sports betting, fantasy football, and DFS content available on RotoGrinders leading up to kickoff. We’ll be covering fantasy football for BestBall with Spike Week, rankings and projections, DFS preseason with RotoGrinders Premium, and RotoGrinders Premium and Sports betting at RG and ScoresAndOdds.
2022 San Francisco 49ers Schedule, Lines, and Best Bets
Projected Odds, derived & modified from data originally published by Sean Koerner here.
Win Total and Total Games Favored:
10 (-110) / 11 Games Favored ( 5 Big Favorites / 0 Big Dogs)
San Francisco’s win total is set at 10 which is a number they hit exactly with Jimmy G under-center last season. It’s fair to wonder how the switch to Trey Lance will impact the team’s overall success. I view Lance as someone with an extremely wide range of outcomes whose ceiling is far greater than Jimmy G’s but whose floor is similar. A floor season out of Lance likely means they fail to surpass this 10-win total while a ceiling outcome allows them to hit this number with ease.
I have spoken largely in generalities to this point mostly to emphasize the fact that this is a spot with huge variance. When approaching spots with large variance you can do two things as a bettor – just don’t bet or bet on the extreme outcomes where you can find longer odds. In this scenario, I’m going with the latter and suggesting a bet on the 49ers to win the NFC at +750. I mentioned in the Rams preview that I think they’re the stronger bet to win the NFC West but I think it’s likely the division gets two teams into the playoffs. If the ceiling outcome for Lance happens this season the 49ers are easily a playoff team and arguably a top-two team in the NFC.
San Francisco 49ers Props
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Favorite Prop: Trey Lance UNDER 3450.5 Passing Yards. This isn’t to say I don’t think Lance is capable of topping this number but rather that I don’t think he’ll get the opportunity to. San Francisco is a run-first, slow-paced offense and that could be emphasized even further with the mobile Lance under-center. Jimmy G topped this number last season but it was largely on efficiency (thank you Deebo) as the 49ers ranked 30th in pass-play rate (55%) in non-garbage time situations.
San Francisco 49ers Fantasy Football Projections
Team Rankings and Ratings
Offense Ranks:Rank 8/ Elite Rush / Average Pass/ Rank 9 Points For)
Defense Ranks:Rank 3/ Elite Rush / Strong pass / Rank 22 Points Allowed)
Opponent Strength – Rushing:5 difficult vs. rush. 5 soft vs. rush.
Opponent Strength – Passing:7 difficult vs. pass. 8 soft vs. pass.
This is the spot where we talk about how an offense can be good but still tough to rely on for fantasy. As you can see above, the 49ers project to have one of the best offenses in the league, but their style of offense is not conducive to big-time fantasy production (unless you are a freak named Deebo Samuel). As mentioned above, San Francisco ranked 30th in pass rate last season which means they ran the ball…a lot. That’s not so bad for fantasy when your RB room is injury-depleted and there is only one man left standing (sup, Elijah?) but it is bad when everyone is back healthy and you also draft an RB in the third round. I expect the 49ers to be very good on offense this season but their weekly production to be tough to predict unless they get hit with a bunch of injuries like last season.
San Francisco 49ers Top Fantasy Football Plays & Picks
Noteworthy Depth Chart
QB: Trey Lance – Underdog Rank: 60 (ADP 80 / 33.33% ADP Gap)
RB: Elijah Mitchell – Underdog Rank: 71 (ADP 64 / -9.86% ADP Gap)
RB: Tyrion Davis-Price – Underdog Rank: 195 (ADP 157 / -19.49% ADP Gap)
WR: Deebo Samuel – Underdog Rank: 12 (ADP 19 / 58.33% ADP Gap)
WR: Brandon Aiyuk – Underdog Rank: 77 (ADP 85 / 10.39% ADP Gap)
WR: Jauan Jennings – Underdog Rank: 217 (ADP 234 – 7.83% ADP Gap)
TE: George Kittle – Underdog Rank: 42 (ADP 50 / 19.05% ADP Gap)
*Note: Premium Subscribers can find updated rankings for Underdog Fantasy in the content schedule here.
New Additions of Note: Nothing overly significant – a lot of shuffling in the WR4/return game (Ray-Ray McCloud, Malik Turner, Marcus Johnson)
Departures of Note: Head Coach Kyle Shanahan has stated that he expects Jimmy Garoppolo to be traded but we haven’t seen any movement in that regard
One of the biggest question marks surrounding the 49ers offense is how much Deebo Samuel will be used as a rusher. Deebo was used sparingly in this regard to start the season but then jumped into a much larger role from Weeks 10 to the NFC Championship, averaging 7.3 carries per game, 43.6 rushing yards, and 0.7 rushing touchdowns. Unsurprisingly Deebo’s increased role as a runner resulted in less work as a receiver as he caught more than four passes just once over that same span. While I don’t think Deebo will see quite as much work out of the backfield as he did last year it’s tough to argue against the success it had. Fully acknowledging that Deebo is a complete freak, I am a bit hesitant to invest in him at his current Underdog ADP of 17.4. It is worth noting that I am almost always underweight on players who rely on efficiency over volume for their fantasy production and Deebo is the poster boy of that player type.
Brandon Aiyuk started the 2021 season in Kyle Shanahan’s doghouse but eventually worked his way out to finish the season strong. It’s worth noting that Aiyuk saw his best production when Deebo was used more often out of the backfield so if you think Deebo sees less time as a runner it could mean bad things for Aiyuk’s opportunity. In general, I expect to be underweight on the 49ers passing attack as I simply don’t think there’s enough volume to go around.
I talked a little about the run game above but I’ll explicitly state my not-so-hot take here: Elijah Mitchell will not run for 963 yards this season. Mitchell was given the opportunity to take the RB1 job early last season due to injuries and he ran with it….and didn’t fumble. Like, literally didn’t fumble, which is one of the reasons he was able to earn Kyle Shanahan’s trust. While the oft-injured Raheem Mostert has moved on, San Francisco drafted Tyrion Davis-Price in the third round and Jeff Wilson and Trey Sermon are healthy. All reports out of camp are that the 49ers are expected to take a running back-by-committee approach to start the season and it’s highly unlikely Mitchell sees anywhere near the workload he saw in 2021. Mitchell may still be the ‘RB1’ but we’re probably looking closer to 10-15 carries per game than the ~20 he saw last year as THE guy.
Image Credit: Imagn