FANTASY FOOTBALL NEWS

What Happened to Deebo Samuel?

By Matt Schauf | Updated on Mon, Oct 21 2024 4:59 PM UTC

As your Week 7 fantasy score has already told you, 49ers WR Deebo Samuel barely saw the field in Sunday's loss to the Chiefs because of an illness. We learned about this just ahead of the game, but The Athletic's Matt Barrows reported at the time that Samuel was still expected to play. He technically did ... for 4 snaps.

What They're Saying

HC Kyle Shanahan afterward: "Throat, stomach things, just real fatigued. Struggled to breathe, couldn't catch his breath. That's why he kept trying to fight through it, but once he was struggling with the breathing and everything, we had to shut him down."

2024 Fantasy Football Impact

San Francisco lost this game by 10 at home, so it clearly could have used Samuel -- especially after WR Brandon Aiyuk left with his knee injury. So there's no reason to doubt Shanahan's truthfulness or Samuel's issues here.

The situation's obviously frustrating, but it's also not common.

Players who enter games questionable with illnesses and play generally do so at roughly their normal rates of playing time.

We'll always keep watch for pregame issues and share them in Shark Bites. But there's no larger takeaway from this particular situation.

Samuel should only carry higher weekly floors and ceilings the rest of the way, with Aiyuk looking likely to miss the rest of the season.

Matt Schauf, Editor

Matt has earned two Fantasy Pros accuracy awards for IDP rankings and won thousands of dollars as a player across best ball, dynasty, and high-stakes fantasy formats. He has been creating fantasy football content for more than 20 years, with work featured by Sporting News, Rotoworld, Athlon, Sirius XM, and others. He's been with Draft Sharks since 2011.