We wrap up the penultimate NFL Sunday with a matchup straight out of the NFC as the Chicago Bears head to the bay area to take on the San Francisco 49ers. This game sets up as a potential playoff preview with the Bears in firm control of the NFC North and the 49ers will look to improve upon their playoff seeding.

This primetime matchup for our SNF DFS picks has the second-highest implied total on the Week 17 slate so we should be treated to a possible gem of a matchup to wrap up the holiday weekend. Let’s take a look at the matchups, lineup building strategies, and top plays on DraftKings and FanDuel with our Bears vs. 49ers DFS picks!

 

 

 

Bears vs. 49ers DFS Picks & Preview: Sunday Night Football, 12/28

Both teams enter Week 17 with an 11-4 record. The Bears, winners of seven of their last eight games, control their own destiny in the NFC North and will likely go into the NFC playoffs with the second or third seed. Given how great the Bears have played this season, and the fact the Lions are currently 8-8, it’s pretty clear that Chicago made the right move to bring in Ben Johnson as their head coach from their division rivals.

That hiring is eerily similar to when the San Francisco 49ers hired former Atlanta Falcons coordinator, Kyle Shanahan, as their next head coach. Atlanta hasn’t been the same since Shanahan departed for San Francisco and the 49ers have been contenders most seasons and even made a run to the Super Bowl a couple seasons ago.

Both of these offenses feature a strong emphasis on the running game, but we also cannot sleep on the pass catchers in this matchup. Both teams carry an implied team total north of 24 points and we should expect a lot of production for our NFL DFS contests and our season-long fantasy football championships.

One final note about this matchup, but at the time of the publishing of this article (Saturday morning), the outcome of the NFC West games on Sunday could play a role in how Sean McVay utilizes his offensive and defensive weapons on the Los Angeles Rams for Monday Night Football. With the Seattle Seahawks playing in a winnable matchup against the Carolina Panthers, and the 49ers looking unstoppable, if both Seattle and San Francisco win their Week 17 games then the Rams can’t do anything do improve their playoff positioning and they’d be locked into the six-seed. While I imagine McVay wants to put Stafford in position to accumulate stats for his NFL MVP case, does he dare risk injury to his players in a potentially meaningless game?

We can maybe let the Week 17 games play out and then address lineup building strategy in the NFL DFS Monday Night Playbook tomorrow morning. For now, let’s dive into the Bears vs. 49ers DFS picks on DraftKings and FanDuel!

 

 

 

Bears vs. 49ers SNF Odds at DraftKings & FanDuel

DraftKings Sportsbook

  • Spread:
    • Bears +3.5 (-115)
    • 49ers -3.5 (-105)
  • Money Line:
    • Bears (+150)
    • 49ers (-180)
  • Game Total:
    • Over 52.5 (-110)
    • Under 52.5 (-110)

FanDuel Sportsbook

  • Spread:
    • Bears +3.5 (-122)
    • 49ers -3.5 (+100)
  • Money Line:
    • Bears (+150)
    • 49ers (-178)
  • Game Total:
    • Over 52.5 (-110)
    • Under 52.5 (-110)

 

 

 

NFL Weather: Bears vs. 49ers SNF, December 28th

It’ll be surprisingly chilly in the bay area for our Bears vs. 49ers DFS picks but there aren’t any hazardous conditions we need to be mindful of as of the time this article is published. Temperatures will start in the high 40’s around kickoff and gradually cool off throughout the evening. Winds will not be a factor and there’s no rain in the forecast.

 

Bears vs. 49ers Injuries: Sunday Night Football Week 17

The visiting Chicago Bears have already ruled out Rome Odunze once again, but the good news is that they’ll get Luther Burden back for this Week 17 matchup in primetime. We are monitoring some injury news for Chicago’s secondary. Josh Blackwell, Nahshon Wright, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, and T.J. Edwards are all listed as questionable as of Sunday morning.

The big injury on everyone’s mind for this matchup is to George Kittle, who always has a knack for coming up with a big game in primetime, especially this past Monday night. However, he did aggravate an ankle injury in last week’s game against the Colts. Kittle hasn’t practiced all week and the team has said he’s a true game-time decision. For some slightly better news, Ricky Pearsall has practiced this week and he’s tracking to play in Week 17 after missing last Monday’s game.

 

 

 

NFL Sunday Night Football DFS Picks: MVP/Captain

Christian McCaffrey, RB, San Francisco 49ers - DraftKings: $11,800 | FanDuel: $13,800

McCaffrey once again appears in the MVP/Captain section for a NFL DFS Showdown Playbook and you can honestly read last week’s write-up for him because nothing has changed heading into Week 17.

He’s an easy volume play. He’s the one skill position player we feel great about getting 20+ touches in this matchup. Per DraftKings scoring, he’s averaging 25.7 fantasy points per game and he put up 35.6 points on Monday Night Football last week.

McCaffrey is arguably matchup proof because of the volume and involvement in the passing game. Moreover, if Kittle were to miss this primetime matchup, I anticipate the offensive game plan runs through McCaffrey even more than normal.

Brock Purdy, QB, San Francisco 49ers - DraftKings: $10,600 | FanDuel: $12,600

Purdy has been great in two games since the team’s Bye week. He’s thrown for exactly 295 yards in back-to-back games while completing exactly 75% of his pass attempts with eight touchdown passes in those two games.

I normally don’t elevate a quarterback without much rushing upside to the MVP/Captain section. However, with potentially no George Kittle for this game, we have one less skill position player to consider so that does elevate Purdy’s value on a Showdown slate. He’s come very close to registering the 300-yard bonus in back-to-back games and the touchdown equity is high with this play. The 49ers implied team total is flirting with 28 points so that firmly puts Purdy in play on this slate.

Caleb Williams, QB, Chicago Bears – DraftKings: $10,000 | FanDuel: $12,000

With so much uncertainty regarding George Kittle’s status for this game, we do elevate some additional players into the MVP/Captain section while CMC will see a small increase in ownership as well. Williams has multiple passing touchdowns in four of his last five games, and that does help elevate his floor.

The only concern we have is that we need a ceiling game from Williams and we haven’t seen that much from him this season. Over his last seven games he’s completing less than 60% of his pass attempts and the passing volume has been good, but not great. In that seven-game sample size, he’s only thrown for 250+ yards just once and that came last week where he threw for exactly 250.

He does have the ability to rush. Last week he ran for 30 yards and he’s rushed for 50+ yards in three games this season. I’m hoping in this kind of matchup where the 49ers can give them a fight that we see Williams be more proactive with his legs. Because if he’s going to be completing just 57% of 35 pass attempts, then we likely aren’t getting anywhere close to the 300-yard bonus.

Jauan Jennings, WR, San Francisco 49ers – DraftKings: $8,600 | FanDuel: $9,400

In last Monday’s NFL DFS Monday Night Football Playbook, I noted how Jennings was a solid play but lacked the ceiling to be considered an MVP/Captain option. And that largely held true because he was outscored by CMC, Purdy, and Kittle.

This slate is a bit different because of Kittle’s status. Plus, Jennings is 11 receptions and 34 receiving yards away from a $666,667 bonus. So while I doubt he gets the receptions, I anticipate they’ll try to get him close enough so he can just do the bare minimum to activate the bonus next week.

Jennings has at least five targets in every game dating back to Week 7 and he’s found the end zone in six of his last seven games. The Bears struggle to defend slot receivers and we saw him generate 10.4 fantasy points from the slot last week. I didn’t like him as a Captain last week, but I can rally behind this play in Week 17.

 

 

 

NFL Sunday Night Football DFS Picks: Core Plays

DJ Moore, WR, Chicago Bears – DraftKings: $8,400 | FanDuel: $8,600

Moore is a tough read but ultimately, I can get on board. I’d almost prefer to bet the over on some of his reception props because Rome Odunze is out once again, and the 49ers do give up receptions at a pretty high rate.

Moore has found the end zone in back-to-back games including five times in his last five games. This is a good game script for the Bears to potentially get more aggressive and try to keep pace with the 49ers efficient offense.

D’Andre Swift, RB, Chicago Bears – DraftKings: $8,000 | FanDuel: $8,000

Kyle Monangai, RB, Chicago Bears – DraftKings: $7,000 | FanDuel: $7,000

I do believe that Swift is probably more of a “core” play than Monangai, but I’ll make the argument for both players. Per Hayden Winks of Underdog Fantasy, in the month of December, Swift has been the RB13 on RB14 usage despite the split workload with Monangai. The offensive line has been great for both Chicago running backs as they are each averaging over 3.25 yards before contact per attempt while they’re both right around 1.50 yards after contact per attempt.

Now if we put their metrics under a microscope, we see that Monangai may have more upside while he slightly surrenders some touches to Swift. Per Dataroma, Monangai outpaced Swift 12.9-to-10.6 in expected fantasy points last week and that’s been the case most weeks.

Both running backs get a great matchup Sunday night against a 49ers defense that’s operating on a short week. Chicago loves to run the ball and it’s a staple of Ben Johnson’s style of offense so I’m expecting both to be featured as they rotate every other drive.

 

 

 

NFL Sunday Night Football DFS Picks: Mid-Tier Plays

Ricky Pearsall, WR, San Francisco 49ers – DraftKings: $7,600 | FanDuel: $7,400

Pearsall is a great price on FanDuel, but I like him a lot on both slates. I’m a bit hesitant to lock him in as a Core Play for a couple reasons. For starters, he is coming back from an injury after he missed last week’s game. Additionally, he was relatively quiet in terms of production leading up to the team’s Bye week.

However, the last time we saw him in Week 15 he popped to the tune of six receptions on seven targets for 96 yards and he also touted a 30.4% first-read target share in that game. But the usage inside the 20-yard line was minimal even in that game (22.2% route share in the red zone).

I’m trying to be optimistic because George Kittle hasn’t practiced all week and even if he’s active, he may just be a decoy so I want to believe the 49ers have a plan for their second-year receiver. But best-case scenario it feels like he’s the third pass catching option at best for the 49ers.

Luther Burden, WR, Chicago Bears – DraftKings: $6,800 | FanDuel: $6,400

You can absolutely make the argument for Burden to be in consideration as an MVP/Captain candidate. Burden was inactive last week but keep this in mind, he left Week 15’s game against the Cleveland Browns after playing less than 40% of the team’s snaps but he still led the team in targets.

Burden does have big play upside and it’s clear the team wants to get him involved despite the fact he hasn’t scored since Week 3. With Rome Odunze out for this game, it’s entirely possible Burden rarely comes off the field and Ben Johnson will try to get his rookie receiver going ahead of the playoffs.

 

 

 

NFL Sunday Night Football DFS Picks: Value Plays

Colston Loveland, TE, Chicago Bears – DraftKings: $4,800 | FanDuel: $4,400

We have a pair of value tight ends for our Bears vs. 49ers DFS picks on Sunday Night Football. Colston Loveland certainly has the boom-or-bust aspect to his fantasy football production.

Since Week 7, he has at least four targets in every game with at least three receptions in those games as well. The receiving yards will fluctuate but we’re hoping to just get a cheap touchdown out of this play. Loveland was in consideration as a core play, but I’d prefer that he offer a better floor before I felt confident to list him in that section.

But the 49ers have struggled to defend the tight end position with the loss of Frank Warner so given the value we’re getting Loveland may have the most upside of any play under $6,000 on DraftKings.

Jake Tonges, TE, San Francisco 49ers – DraftKings: $3,000 | FanDuel: $3,200

Tonges gets a boost if George Kittle is actually ruled out for this game. And while we should anticipate a lot of ownership flocking to this play in that case, we just have to eat it. When Kittle missed time earlier in the year, we saw Tonges emerge with some games seeing as few as five targets but in other matchups, like in Week 5, he saw 11 targets.

Be mindful the 49ers were hurting pretty bad with injuries at that point in the year. For this game they’ll have more receivers available. But at such a cheap price point, it’s tremendous value for a player that could see an uptick in snaps and routes. Luke Farrell is an additional option at a cheaper price point if you need more salary relief.

 

 

 

SNF DFS Picks: Kickers & D/ST

As we alluded to at the top of this article, this game has an implied game total of 52.5 points as of Sunday morning and the 49ers are only favored by a field goal. We should expect points in this game and a lot to go around.

Because of the potential offensive output for this matchup, it’s looking like the kind of game we probably target the kickers over the D/ST’s. But obviously this is a one-game slate and the D/ST’s will probably come in at about 15-25% ownership as Flex plays. So I don’t want to particularly fade either group because it’s a position of variance. In the event this matchup is lopsided and doesn’t go as Vegas projects, we should consider having some D/ST exposure in 4:2 or 5:1 stacks in favor of either team.

Eddy Pineiro has been great for the San Francisco 49ers with three straight games with at least three field goal attempts. In fact, Pineiro has attempted multiple field goal attempts in all but two games this season while obviously having plenty of extra point attempts to pad his numbers of late. If there’s one negative note about Pineiro it’s that he has just one field goal conversion from 50+ yards in his last six games but all in all he gets enough volume where he can probably reach double-digit fantasy points.

By contrast, Cairo Santos offers a pretty decent floor for our Bears vs. 49ers DFS picks but may not have the ceiling that Pineiro possesses. But in his last six games, Santos has eight conversions from 40+ yards out with 14 total field goal attempts in that span.

Now I will note that Chicago and San Francisco both present bottom five matchups for the kicker position. Opposing place kickers haven’t had much success against either defense but in analyzing the matchups I’m purely going with Pineiro and Santos because they’re good correlation pieces in our lineups even if they may be bad options for season-long fantasy football championship rosters.

 

 

 

Bears vs. 49ers DFS Player Pool: SNF, 12/28

Player Pool

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