Last night's dramatic -- maybe the most dramatic in years -- Thursday Night Football game included two 30+ year-old WRs leading their respective team in yards. Davante Adams has been one of the past decade's most dominant fantasy wideouts. Following three straight injury-plagued campaigns for Cooper Kupp, the Rams apparently upgraded. Adams' only obvious blemish is a 48% catch rate, which is about 15 percentage points below his average entering this season. If he can close that gap, he could return to the top 10.
Then there's San Francisco's leading Week 5 receiver: 30-year-old Kendrick Bourne, who signed with the 49ers as an undrafted free agent in 2017, left in 2021, and who no team wanted this summer. The Niners retained him ahead of Week 2 when they put George Kittle on injured reserve. He'd had more than eight catches in a game only once and had never exceeded 100 yards. Last night he did both.
But while Adams is the lone "old" guy in an otherwise youthful WR corps, Bourne is part of a patchwork of wideouts that seemingly no other teams wanted. 31-year-old Demarcus Robinson was Mac Jones's second-most targeted WR (seven looks). Nearly 31-year-old Marquez Valdes-Scantling was the third-most targeted WR.
The only other WR target went to Malik Turner; he'll turn 30 in January. And we might as well mention 34-year-old fullback Kyle Juszczyk, who had four targets.
Fantasy-wise, this has to be viewed as a blip. At full health, San Francisco won't need any of them to take more than a few snaps. Bourne's streamability will be gone as quickly as it arrived. The same probably can be said of TE Jake Tonges once Kittle returns to the field.
Tonges truly came out of nowhere. At age 26, he entered Week 1 with zero career receptions on one target (back in 2022). Kittle's injury in that season opener forced Tonges into action. Somehow, Brock Purdy trusted him enough in their late-fourth-quarter game-winning drive to target him three times. Tonges caught all three, including the touchdown pass that won them the game.
None of this was supposed to happen. Most managers embrace predictability. The Rams represent predictability: a seasoned starting QB, a bell cow running back, and two must-start wide receivers. If you have Kyren Williams, Puka Nacua, and/or Adams, you have a pretty good sense of their realistic range of outcomes.
Not so with San Francisco -- at least not this backup iteration. The realistic range of outcomes for Mac Jones, Bourne, Tonges, MVS, and everyone else not named Christian McCaffrey was essentially impossible to narrow. Smart money was on L.A. to squash these backups, though presumably at least one non-CMC Niner might break through. Instead, it was Jones, Bourne, and Tonges all playing the hero. And to think they might not start another game all year.
Finally, a word on McCaffrey. Yesterday's podcast episode focused exclusively on him -- primarily his inefficiency and his dependence on a record pace for targets. Both played out last night, as he couldn't manufacture anything on the ground, but dominated through the air. He'll probably remain the overall fantasy RB1 entering Week 6. But the warning signs are so clear, because once this team gets fully healthy, they'll have the luxury of easing up on CMC.
And congrats to Yemi Onibokun for picking the closest score (24-20) and for being one of only three people to predict a 49ers victory. Yemi, wish I could give you two prizes for that. But until I get sponsors, it will remain zero.
---