Kyle Juszczyk (RB, SF) - Week 7 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14-Team PPR Leagues

OWNED IN: 4% of Leagues

ANALYSIS: Things looked pretty grim for the San Francisco passing-game when Jimmy Garoppolo started the season off on such a lackluster note. After his torn ACL forced C.J. Beathard to take over after three games and produce just 223 passing yards with six touchdowns and five picks in 114 passing attempts since then, the situation on offense has been even murkier for the 49ers. With names like Pierre Garcon and Marquise Goodwin in the mix within the San Francisco receiving core, it may come as a gargantuan surprise that the team's two leading receivers have been tight end George Kittle and Kyle Juszczyk, who is essentially the team's FB. Though Juszczyk has seen far fewer targets (23) than the likes of Kittle (41) and Garcon (39), he has converted those targets into 17 catches for a 73.9% catch rate. He has turned those catches into 227 receiving yards and holds an impressive yards-per-reception figure for a fullback of 13.4.

Juszczyk's best game came in week five against Arizona when he went for 76 receiving yards on six catches out of seven targets (not to mention a single carry for 12 yards). While he has only accrued a single trip to the end-zone so far into the 2018 campaign, he has received an encouraging amount of opportunity to find scoring situations as evidenced by his two catches and four targets that came in the red-zone. The issue in deploying him at all, even in a deeper PPR league, is that his presence in the running game is virtually non-existent. With just one carry all year and the Bay duo of Matt Breida/Alfred Morris making up 658 of the 49ers rushing yards and three rushing TDs, the hope of Juszczyk even receiving a goal-line carry as a burly FB can be measured from slim to foolish. However, the San Francisco passing-game is in shambles. C.J. Beathard is uncomfortable and looking for anchor options from the air like his TE (Kittle) and FB (Juszczyk). Even without carries and his up and down season to this point, his skill set as a blocker in the backfield will keep him in the offense enough going forward to see plenty of action in the form of targets which he has been converting at a rather efficient rate, making Kyle Juszczyk a highly intriguing option in deep PPR leagues.