NFL Week 7 Fantasy Football Recap: San Francisco 49ers vs. Kansas City Chiefs

• Mecole Hardman: 4 receptions, 32 yards, 1 touchdown, 2 carries, 28 yards, two touchdowns

• JuJu Smith-Schuster: 7 receptions, 124 yards, 1 touchdown

PFF's fantasy football recap focuses on player usage and stats, breaking down all the vital information you need to achieve fantasy success in 2022.

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Christian McCaffrey’s first game with the 49ers: McCaffrey joined the 49ers late Thursday night, and he split playing time with Jeff Wilson in this game.

- McCaffrey and Wilson were used pretty interchangeably throughout the game, with McCaffrey seeing all of his playing time on normal first and second downs.
- He wasn’t necessarily used in the red zone as some reported he could be.
- Kyle Juszczyk remained the third-down back.
- Tyrion Davis-Price was the third-string halfback. He played three snaps in the first three quarters and then featured significantly in the last few minutes with the game out of reach.
- We can expect McCaffrey to see a much larger majority of snaps, including likely taking third downs, by next week.
- Wilson can be cut in all leagues. Wilson can’t be in starting lineups next week. The 49ers have a bye in Week 9, and then Elijah Mitchell should be back around Week 10.

Isiah Pacheco starts for Kansas City: Pacheco was declared the starter earlier in the day, which led to only a slight increase in snaps.

- He largely cut into the playing time of Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who also played significantly on run plays. Pacheco out-snapped Edwards-Helaire by just two.
- Jerick McKinnon continued to see nearly all of the passing-down work, including most of the short-yardage situations.
- McKinnon still received significant work on early downs.
- The move to Pacheco as a starter made it harder to put any of the running backs in a fantasy starting lineup.
- Pacheco can probably be trusted in games with a more favorable game script. The Chiefs were up by only five points early in the fourth quarter.
- All three running backs should remain on fantasy rosters.

Only add Mecole Hardman in deep leagues: The Chiefs receiver scored three touchdowns, but he remains a clear third on the depth chart.

- His playing time had been on the decline as the team tried to get rookie Skyy Moore more involved.
- His 1.27 yards per route run this season are lower than you would like to see from a fantasy starter. Both starting receivers as well as Moore are notably higher.
- Hardman’s playing time was up in this game because it was close, and the Chiefs tend to not play their rookies as much in close games.
- Kansas City has a much easier schedule the rest of the season, which will mean more two tight end sets, and increased snaps by Moore.

Table Notes

• Snaps include plays called back due to penalties, including offensive holding or defensive pass interference. The other three stats have these plays removed.

• Targets may differ from official NFL sources. The most likely discrepancy would be from a clear thrown-away pass, where the NFL may give the target to the nearest receiver, while this data will not.

• Carries are only on designed plays. Quarterback scrambles won’t count for the total number of carries in the game.