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Jauan Jennings calf is feeling better, and according to Kyle Shanahan, Fantasy Football managers should expect him to play in Week 1. Nothing is ever certain until inactives come out in San Francisco, but this is obviously encouraging news for anyone who drafted Jennings at a discount -- but it could also have a major impact on the production of the rest of the 49ers. 

The top healthy wide receivers on the roster behind Jennings and Ricky Pearsall are Skyy Moore and Russell Gage. So it should go without saying that we were expecting a major target consolidation for the 49ers between Pearsall, Christian McCaffrey, and George Kittle if Jennings were out. With McCaffrey and Kittle it is likely a distinction without a difference; they will be in your lineup and ranked as must-start players with or without Jennings. For Pearsall and quarterback Brock Purdy this could be the difference between starting them and sitting them. Let's start with the quarterback.

Purdy has never been a high volume passer, but his efficiency has been among the best in the league since he became a starter. He owns an elite 6.0% career touchdown rate and has averaged 8.9 yards per attempt, which is somewhere beyond elite. Otherworldly would be one way to say it. It was already difficult to expect him to match that efficiency with Deebo Samuel in Washington and Brandon Aiyuk on the PUP list. Without Jennings, I wouldn't rank Purdy as a top 15 QB and lowered his yards per attempt to 7.5 and his touchdown rate to close to league average, 4.3%. If Jennings is a full go on Friday, expect a boost there and expect Purdy to be ranked much closer to top 12 than his QB20 ranking at the beginning of the week.

Pearsall has been one of the biggest risers in Fantasy drafts the last month, at least partially because of Jennings' absence. With Jennings out for Week 1 you could make an argument for a 25% target share for Pearsall and a top 24 rankings. As it stands right now, I have Pearsall closer to WR36 with a 22% target share. If Jennings is logging full practices later in the week I may pull back on that a little more. He's still a high-upside WR3 but it is worth noting that the duo played nine games together last year and Jennings out targeted Pearsall 77-37. That was Pearsall's rookie season and there are obvious extenuating circumstances, you can't entirely wave away a split like that.

Now we come to the man causing all of this commotion. The real unknown here is how serious Jennings' calf injury was, how healed he is, and how much of all of this had to do with his contract dispute. For now, with him logging a limited practice on Wednesday, I am only projecting Jennings for a 16% target share in a game where I have Brock Purdy projected to throw 30 passes. That makes him more of a dart throw flex than anything else. I will bump that up with a full practice later in the week, but likely no higher than 18%. We have seen hold outs who were perfectly healthy struggle early in the season, so you may not want to start Jennings until you see a good game. But one thing is for sure, in the 25% of CBS leagues where Jennings is still available, he should be added. There is still a chance he is the most productive wide receiver in San Francisco this season.