The San Francisco 49ers (+7) injury woes continue well into the playoffs with George Kittle tearing his Achilles’ in the wild-card round, but the show must go on. Head coach Kyle Shanahan and company will see a familiar face in the #1 seed Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field Saturday night. The regular-season series was split 1-1 with both teams grabbing a victory on the road. The spread at +7 seems high to me given Shanahan’s playoff record and Sam Darnold’s…lack of playoff success. Weather Saturday night is expected to be a low of 37 with clear skies and winds of 6-8 mph.
Here are my favorite prop bets.
Kendrick Bourne (SF) Over 5.5 receiving yards (-110)
Line available at Bet365 Sportsbook at the time of publishing
George Kittle going down last week was just another deathblow to this 49ers squad that has endured a season riddled with them. Shanahan is a master at piece-mailing things together with his schemes, which is why finding player props for the 49ers can be so profitable if you hit on the right skill-position players. This week I’m going with Kendrick Bourne to step up, and we’re getting essentially a one reception yardage line for him. In the games that just Kittle missed this season, Bourne was third on the team in targets and third in receptions vs zone defense (behind Christian McCaffrey and Jake Tonges). Most importantly, in the games that Kittle missed, Bourne tied for first with targets out of the slot (13 in games). Last week Bourne played 37% of snaps with Ricky Pearsall out — and although Pearsall is returning, I still expect Bourne to see 30-40% of snaps.
SGP: AJ Barner (SEA) 25+ receiving yards + Christian McCaffrey (SF) 6+ receptions (+135)
Line available at FanDuel Sportsbook at time of publishing
I have had some success with these alt-line SGPs this season, and I’m going right back to the well for Saturday night’s showdown. On the McCaffrey side of this, his role is going to be RB1/WR1 and the game-plan will be shaped around him as much as possible. His median receptions output is 6, so with this line at 6.5 I don’t feel comfortable going to that 7 number — but the Seahawks rank 32nd in targets allowed to RBs against easily the best receiving RB in football. On the Barner side of this of this SGP, he ranks second in receiving yards when lined up inline against a San Francisco defense ranked 28th in receiving yards lined up inline according to PFF. His median yardage output this season is 27 yards and his line is at 30.5-33.5, so we bring this down to 25 feeling comfortable in the matchup.
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