Fantasy football projections, Week 12: 49ers-Dolphins featuring Carlos Hyde, Jay Ajayi, Jarvis Landry, more

The Week 12 matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and the Miami Dolphins features two teams with solid fantasy running backs. We’ve got the fantasy projections courtesy of numberFire.

Running back Carlos Hyde is all that the San Francisco 49ers really have to fall back on from a fantasy perspective. The good news is that he got back to a full workload last week after missing some time due to injury. Coach Chip Kelly maintains that he’s still the focal point of the offense. Hyde carried the ball 19 times for 86 yards against the New England Patriots. It would’ve been hard for fantasy owners to ask him to do any better against the team that everyone knew would blowout San Francisco. Week 12 presents a much friendlier matchup from a game-flow perspective. Hyde may not see 20 carries in the contest, but he will get enough action to challenge his projected totals on Sunday.

For those in desperate need of a quarterback as the fantasy playoffs loom closer, San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick might be worth taking a flyer on. He’s not surprising anybody by any means, but his fantasy totals over the last three weeks have been fairly steady. Kaepernick threw for 206 yards and two touchdowns against the Patriots, adding in 32 yards rushing. Miami is really good at defending opposing fantasy quarterbacks, but only Kaepernick possesses any fantasy value at all outside of the running game. He should finish right around his projected totals, but won’t rise too far above them in Miami.

Although running back Jay Ajayi is still the engine of the Dolphins offense, he’s cooled down a bit of late. Ajayi has 156 yards rushing on 35 carries over the last two games combined. Those totals are still solid but they are nothing compared to the three-game stretch before that, which saw him post an incredible 529 rushing yards and four touchdowns. Certainly savvy fantasy owners expected him to come down to earth, but they should also be hopeful that Ajayi can get back into the end zone against the 49ers in Week 12. San Francisco is allowing just under 180 yards rushing per game to opposing teams. That’s good enough for dead last in the league by a fair margin. Ajayi is going to crush it on Sunday.

His production may continue to limit the team’s No. 1 receiver and former PPR machine Jarvis Landry. Landry had been targeted at least eight times in all but one game throughout the first seven weeks of the season. In the last three weeks, he’s been targeted no more than six times in each contest. The good news is he did catch all five of his passes against the Los Angeles Rams in Week 11, a game that saw Landry also score his second touchdown of the season. Only one team has given up more fantasy points to wide receivers than San Francisco. Perhaps Landry can steal a touchdown from his teammate Ajayi in the red zone and score for the second straight game. Fantasy owners shouldn’t count on it, though.