Welcome, everyone to the score fantasy football podcast.

I'm your host, Justin Boone.

Thank you so much for coming back for our Friday show after we took last Friday off from this one. And thank you for being understanding that family and friends come first. I mean, I don't miss many days during the NFL season. I could probably count on one hand the days that I've taken off during the fall over the last decade or so. But when it's big life events, I can't say no. So I appreciate everybody being cool about that. And I also apologize, if you can hear the construction outside of my house right now, I'm hoping that it's not as loud on the recording as it is in my office at the moment, but we will try to clean it up as much as possible in the edit. Now, what a Friday episode we got for you today. We're going to go over all the notable

injuries like we always do, but we got to start with Christian McCaffrey getting traded to the 49ers.

We heard the rumors that it was coming that the Rams, the 49ers, even the bills were all in the

mix, but San Francisco ends up being the one who comes away with a major upgrade in their

backfield.

And the price was steep for a running back, a second, a third, fourth round picks in 2023,

and then a 2024 fifth rounder as well.

So great job by Carolina to get a haul for a running back because we just, we don't see that happen very often anymore.

But you also don't see many running backs like Christian McCaffrey.

And we can debate here whether the 49ers overpaid, but I don't really care about that.

We just want to figure out what this means for fantasy.

So let's start on the 49ers side because the Panthers side is just a little bit depressing.

And the 49er side, I mean, it might be depressing too, I guess, if you have Elijah Mitchell or Jeff Wilson on your roster because we had so much hope for Mitchell that he would return from the knee injury in week 10 after their buy that he could pick up where they left off and he could have a really strong finish to the season. And maybe that could still happen, but it's going to take a Christian McCaffrey injury for it to actually go down now. So Mitchell, he is just going to be a backup stash. He's in that mix of guys like an Alexander Madison, that kind of grouping where you know if the starter goes down, they can produce, but they're going to need that injury in order to give you a fantasy value. Jeff Wilson, on the other hand, has had some good games. He's been scripted out of some others while he's been filling in for Mitchell. He could still be used this week because McCaffrey's just joining the team on Friday. So that's a very short turnaround. They're saying that he's likely going to suit up. That's probably true, but I wouldn't expect him to be used much. There were a few reports that he could maybe factor in around the goal line and some of those packages, but highly unlikely that he's going to see significant volume after showing up to the team just two days before they play. And Kyle Shanahan, he made it sound like McCaffrey might not even be active. So we'll see what happens there. After that, though, Wilson is really just going to be a drop candidate.

I mean, as long as Mitchell's recovery is going well, and right now, all signs point to him

coming back, then you're going to be able to drop Wilson because you're going to have CMC in town.

He's the proven star now. We're not as worried about this being that revolving door that

Kyle Shanahan's had over the last five or six seasons in San Francisco when it comes to his backfield, just constantly a new starter every year, not anymore, right? McCaffrey, he's under contract for a couple more seasons, and he is going to be the guy, he's going to be a focal point of that offense. And this could also be good news for Trey Lance in 2023, but we'll save that conversation for another day when we're talking about Dynasty. For this year, McCaffrey is locked in as a top two fantasy back overall. It is him. It is Sequin Barclay. So if you have McCaffrey, yes, his value does go up based on this news. He escapes that Panthers offense. He goes to a team with a strong rushing attack, a team that should provide him with lots of scoring opportunities, something that he wasn't getting in Carolina. And the 49ers, they get the Seahawks, the commanders, and the Raiders during the fantasy playoffs. So CMC could be a very big difference maker down the stretch. You've got to be excited about that. For the pass catchers in this offense, though, it's a small drop in value for them just based on the added target competition. Because for somebody like Debo Samuel, let's say, he might not need to take as many backfield touches now with CMC there, now that they have that proven guy. He still will get some, but it won't be as frequent I would imagine so

Debo's a low-end wide receiver one high-end wide receiver two now for me brandon Iyuk

really nice schedule in the second half of the year we should say for that passing

attack but he's already been kind of inconsistent another set of hands in the

...