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.
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."
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.
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