Pickens had a strong showing in the preseason, hauling in a 33-yard touchdown in the opening game against the Buccaneers.
Last season, he had the second-best contested catch rate in the NFL and led the Steelers in average depth of target (aDOT).
Defense is a strength of the 49ers, but they are a little weaker in the secondary. Cornerback Charvarius Ward is listed as questionable on the injury report with a heel injury.
San Francisco allowed 16 touchdowns to wide receivers last season, which was bottom six in the league. It was stronger defending running backs and tight ends, only allowing 11 touchdowns to those positions.
If Kenny Pickett is slinging it, I think Pickens will show out in Week 1.
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Njoku was second on the Browns in targets per game and receiving yards per game last year. He tallied 20 red-zone targets (most on the team) and consistently played over 85% of snaps.
Of note in this spot is that Njoku’s performance tends to tick up against AFC North teams. Eleven of his 19 career TDs (27 games) have come against division rivals (40.7% TD rate). The TD rate drops to 15.3% when facing teams outside the division.
For what it’s worth, he’s scored in three of the last four games against the Bengals.
Over a six-game sample playing with Deshaun Watson, Njoku had 10 red-zone targets and two touchdowns.
I’m counting on a bounce-back year from Tannehill, who only had two rushing touchdowns last year. Of course, he got hurt in Week 7, only played in 12 games overall and never really looked like himself.
Derrick Henry helps our cause here as the ultimate decoy. Because King Henry draws so much attention, Tannehill was able to total 14 scores on the ground from 2020-21.
In the last three seasons, Tannehill is fourth amongst all quarterbacks in rushing touchdowns with 16 – the only players ahead of him are Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen and Kyler Murray. The Anytime TD odds of that trio in any given week hover around +150.
In those games Tannehill scored, the starting running back also scored 80% of the time.
