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WHY HANDCUFFING YOUR TOP BACKS EARLY IS OVERRATED
By Michael Williams for The Fantasy Jungle I’ve been in
handcuffs before, and they aren’t too comfortable. Maybe that explains why I
hate the concept of handcuffing your top backs early in the draft. For those of
you new to this concept, the term “handcuffing”, refers to securing the backup
Running Back to the starting Running Back you have selected. Now it’s not that
this concept doesn’t make sense, it’s just that it doesn’t make sense when you
have to spend a quality draft pick to do it. Now what is an acceptable round to
pull the trigger on the handcuff? That depends, and it depends on several
factors. Let’s see how this can apply to your draft and share some tips to try
and help you not overpay for a backup Running Back.
Fantasy Football has grown leaps and bounds in the last five years. The industry
is flush with new players and while that is a great thing, it also is now flush
with people recycling the same jargon and concepts promoted on the various info
sites and magazines. This guy is a sleeper, this WR is entering his 3rd year,
this RB had so many carries, you better draft this backup….SLOW DOWN. Here is
where we jump off the train. You can play your draft one of two ways. You can be
cautious, and use a quality pick on a backup, or you can go balls to the wall,
and disregard handcuffing if it comes at the expense of burning a quality draft
pick. In a home league with your friends, you can afford to draft a backup later
on as most will be there, but in the national fantasy football contests such as
The Fantasy Jungle where there is a premium placed on Running Backs, the margin
for error is a lot smaller. You simply can’t afford to waste a top pick on a guy
who’s only chance to play significant minutes is if someone in front of him
suffers an injury.
A perfect example of this over the last few seasons has been Michael Turner. Now
that Turner is now in Atlanta, he no longer falls into this category, as he will
get more snaps in Atlanta and probably be the starter. But here was a guy, when
he was in San Diego, who was arguably the most over hyped back in the NFL and in
fantasy football, and was the poster boy for the example of being taken way too
early. Sure he did ok when he came into games in the past, but remember that he
was running behind one of the game’s best offensive lines, LT had already
pounded on the defense and worn them out, and we didn’t have enough of a sample
of Turner to see if he was an every game threat similar to LT. So not only did
you have to hope that LT got hurt if you drafted Turner, but you had to hope
that Turner could produce as a top back by himself. That wasn’t guaranteed and
remember that as a fantasy player, you need to put yourself in the most optimum
situations to excel in. If you were taking Michael Turner in 2007 or another
backup early, you aren’t doing that, you were just trying to get lucky and catch
lightning in a bottle. This is also what the “vultures” do who skip out on
taking top backs, and instead hijack all of the top backup RB’s in the mid
rounds and use them as their main RB’s. This strategy seldom works. Someone will
get lucky every year by doing this, but most won’t, and it’s too hard to predict
with any accuracy and it turns your season into a crapshoot right off the bat.
Every draft day, people are running as fast as they can to draft the backup RB’s.
If you are an LT owner, should you draft his backup? Of course, but this guy
goes anywhere from the 5th to the 10th rounds and that’s just too early to take
a chance on a guy who will only get on the field if LT is hurt. In Fantasy
Jungle mock drafts, here is an example of players who went in Rounds 5-10 that
you would lose out on if you decided to draft a backup RB instead: Derek
Anderson, Lav Coles, Tony Gonzalez, Bobby Engram, Santonio Holmes, and Marc
Bulger. Every one of those guys not only can help you win games, but would be an
integral part of any fantasy team and are players who you can start every week.
If you draft a backup that early, and LT doesn’t get hurt, then you have lost
one of those guys and that very well might be the difference between winning
your league and finishing 5th.
If I draft LT, I’m crossing his backup off my list because he is going to be
long gone before I have a chance to handcuff him in any reasonable round. You
have to decide if you want to take the insurance, but that is an awfully steep
price to pay if you never need him. There is a reason you shouldn’t take
insurance from the dealer when playing blackjack, and that applies here as well.
As an alternative, you are better off going after a Running Back who is part of
a RBBC that you can take around the 10th round, then giving up a 6th or 7th
round pick to take a backup.
It’s important not to confuse “handcuffing” with RBBC (Running Back By
Committees). For example, if you draft Julius Jones, you aren’t handcuffing
Maurice Morris if you select Jones, you are snagging one half of the Seattle
RBBC. That is much different than handcuffing LT with his backup, because Jones
is playing in roughly half of the offensive snaps, and has the potential to
knock down 10-15 points every week for you.
You need to monitor your draft and decide when the time is right to handcuff
your back. There is no magic round when it’s time to do it, but you should try
and make sure the following questions are answered before you handcuff your
back:
1) Is there a guy on the draft board that is a starter and can earn starter
points on any given week? If yes, then take that guy. When your opponents
handcuff is taking up a bench spot, this extra guy you drafted gives you one
more starter than he has and whether you now have 5 WR’s to his 4 WR’s to choose
from, or you have 4 RB’s to his 3 RB’s, you have a man advantage over him when
selecting your starting lineup each week.
2) Do I have all of my starting positions accounted for already (not counting my
K
and D/ST)? If no, then you need to fill out your starting lineup before you pick
a backup. There is too much weekly point value at QB, RB, WR, TE, and FLEX to
pass on those positions before you take a handcuff.
3) If your starting back gets hurt, is your handcuff going to be a lock, to step
in and get all the carries? If you answer no to this question, then you should
place even less of a priority on grabbing that handcuff. For example, if
Laurence Maroney goes down, chances are that instead of Sammy Morris getting all
the run, he will share carries with Lamont Jordan and Kevin Faulk also, so now
your handcuff isn’t even taking all the reps. Do you really want to burn an
early pick on Morris where you could draft Greg Jennings instead?
Injuries happen, and they especially happen in football. Occasionally handcuffs
work. If you would have handcuffed Clinton Portis two years ago with Ladell
Betts, it would have paid off big for you. However the odds say that there is
more of a chance of that NOT happening, than of it happening. Its just like in
poker. If you have A-A pre-flop and you move all in, and you are called by your
opponent with a 2-7 off suit, you are a tremendous favorite and the odds are in
your favor. It’s possible the flop comes 2-7-2 and you are out of luck, but
fundamentally, you made the right play. If you play those Aces every time
against that 2-7, the odds are going to come out in your favor more than they
are going to be against. And in fantasy football, you need to try and rely on
skill and the optimum decisions that come from that, more than luck. Tiger Woods
doesn’t practice out of bunkers in his practice rounds, because he doesn’t want
to have a negative mentality where he even thinks he will be in the bunkers. Do
you have that approach, or are you more in favor of the lay-up approach David
Sims from Tin Cup uses? That’s up to you to decide on what style you roll with,
but if you can stock your rosters with talent in the later rounds, and not reach
on a handcuff, chances are you will have more results like Tiger Woods, than you
will David Sims.
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