The San Francisco 49ers needed to address the wide receiver room going into 2026. Last season, RB Christian McCaffrey was the leading receiver with no wideout reaching more than 643 yards (Jauan Jennings) on the season. Both Ricky Pearsall and TE George Kittle missed games. Brandon Aiyuk also sat out all season.
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To address the need at WR, the Niners signed veteran Mike Evans in free agency to be the top option alongside CMC and Kittle when he returns from a torn Achilles. We’ve seen plenty of receivers thrive in the Kyle Shanahan offense — will Evans be the next up?
Matt Harmon is back and joined by Scott Pianowski to discuss players being ranked too high and too low, highlighting the potential of a Evans-Brock Purdy stack in 2026 on the latest episode of the Yahoo Fantasy Forecast.
With Jennings gone and Aiyuk all but out of San Francisco, the 49ers brought in Evans and fellow veteran Christian Kirk. The team also drafted De’Zhaun Stribling at the top of the second round to add more depth around Purdy in the passing game.
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Pianowski points all that out, and while Evans has his injury concerns, the analyst believes the wideout will score 10-plus touchdowns this upcoming season. Pianowski wants pieces of this offense and also thinks the defense being weaker could be a plus for fantasy players in San Francisco.
So Pianowski is going to be drafting the Purdy-Evans stack proactively this season.
Harmon is also on board and views Purdy as a perfect late-round QB for this draft season. While Purdy only appeared in nine games in 2025 due to injury, the signal-caller finished the season as the QB2 in fantasy points per game at 22.7. Early ADP has Purdy going as the QB12, per FantasyPros. Early on Yahoo, Purdy is the QB14.
Harmon also points out how great Purdy was down the stretch last season, and when the Niners had good matchups, the QB was performing at a very high level — both in fantasy and real life.