San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk suddenly faces far less target competition with the departure of Deebo Samuel Sr. Unfortunately, Aiyuk isn’t fully healthy, returning from a midseason ACL tear. Should fantasy football managers take the injury discount on the 49ers WR1?
Should You Draft Brandon Aiyuk in Fantasy?
The most difficult players to properly value in fantasy are injured stars. Typically, a player goes in a specific round because he is the caliber of player that belongs in that wrong.
Aiyuk is obviously not the WR47, and no fantasy manager would tell you they expect him to perform like a low WR4. But he’s coming off a torn ACL and is very likely to miss at least the first month of the season, if not more.
Two short years ago, Aiyuk averaged 15.6 fantasy points per game, finishing as the WR16. Last year was cut short by injury.
It is worth noting that Aiyuk was really struggling before getting hurt, though. He averaged 8.9 PPG in seven games. Only his 22.7-point Week 5 performance against the Cardinals was worth anything for fantasy managers. Every other week, he was in the single digits.
Aiyuk has never been an elite target share guy. He was 24.2% last year, a drop of just 0.8% from his career 2023 season. It’s impossible to point to any one reason his production dipped, but we can try.
Aiyuk’s targets per route run rate decreased from 24.9% to 22.7%. But most importantly, something weird happened with his aDOT and catchable targets.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that the closer to the line of scrimmage a player is being targeted, the easier the pass is to catch. For Aiyuk, it was the opposite.
Aiyuk had a 13.8 aDOT with a 74.3% catchable target rate in 2023. Despite his aDOT dropping to 11.8 in 2024, his catchable target rate plummeted to 59.6%. He caught just 53.2% of his passes before he was lost for the season.
The good news is that nothing suggests Aiyuk’s talent isn’t still there. He may be coming off a serious injury, but he’s still only 27 years old. Once healthy, he should be able to produce somewhere between his 2023 and 2024 seasons.
Brandon Aiyuk was pretty special in 2023.
It is hard to see Aiyuk returning to form after immediately tearing his ACL and MCL. The question is how long it will take for Aiyuk to play like himself again. pic.twitter.com/uwa5pzphrX
— Mike Urtaza (@urtazablue) June 3, 2025
One issue Aiyuk will encounter is that this offense runs through Christian McCaffrey. Yet, even in a season when McCaffrey missed all but four games, the game plan didn’t change. The 49ers want to play slow as molasses, control the clock, and run the ball.
Over the past two seasons, no team has run plays at a slower pace than the 49ers’ 30.5 seconds per snap. The fact that the next slowest team, the Titans, are nearly a full second faster than the 49ers (29.6) is outrageous.
San Francisco also has a 46% neutral game script run rate over the past two seasons. That’s good for eighth in the league. As a result, Purdy averaged 27.75 pass attempts per game in 2023 and 30.3 per game in 2024.
There is reason for optimism in 2025, though. The 49ers aren’t as good as they used to be. Therefore, they may be unable to dominate games, resulting in more passing. We saw a glimpse of that last year, as Purdy’s attempts per game ticked up by 2.5.
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Samuel is now in Washington, though. During his entire time in San Francisco, Aiyuk has averaged 12.7 PPG in 55 games with Samuel against 14.5 PPG in 14 games without him. Unsurprisingly, his volume is greater without the target competition.
Once Aiyuk returns, it will likely take him a few weeks to get back to some version of himself. I have Aiyuk ranked as my WR52, which is the point at which I’m willing to take a risk on him. I am not particularly keen on drafting injured players. But if Aiyuk falls below ADP, he is a worthwhile second-half play who could be a WR2 when it matters most.
Mason LeBeau’s Brandon Aiyuk Fantasy Projection
Is Brandon Aiyuk a savvy late grab for leagues with an IR spot? Maybe, but probably not. We should know more closer to the season, and if the prognosis on Aiyuk’s recovery is trending positive, then any player of his talent is worth the stash. However, we’re well into training camp, and it seems more and more likely he’ll miss a few weeks — a long commitment to make already.
Injuries of his nature can vary, and this seems like far more of a “year after the year after” type of bet to make. Still, at age 27, he’s in his prime, and his recovery could happen quicker than expected.
That said, his 2024 season was rough. He did not go into the season hurt, but slow from his holdout. Aiyuk held out through the preseason and returned just before the start of the regular season. The effects of his missing all that practice time were evident: six games with under 50 yards, no touchdowns, and ugly reps throughout.
It would be speculation to assume that it played a part in his Week Seven injury, but that’s now his battle as opposed to a new deal. Even when he does make his return to the field, will he be back to his former self? Considering that that’ll be close to the fantasy playoffs, I don’t really want to be the one to find out. Even in the best-case scenario, I don’t think Aiyuk is a league-winning asset. Save yourself the trouble on this one.
