Throw the Cuffs on Him

When I prep for my fantasy football season, I’ll spend hours analyzing stats, reading player projection for all the different fantasy football news sites hoping to find that sleeper draft pick or third year player ready to join the upper echelon of fantasy players. The one area we can’t predict is injuries, I’ve been lucky in the past few years that I’ve never lost my first or second round pick due to a season long injury although last year I had to find replacements for Tony Romo and Anquan Boldin for multiple games.

There is a strategy that some fantasy football owners employ called Handcuffing. I’ve never used the strategy but I’ll explain it here and let you be the judge.

The object of handcuffing is to draft the backup player for one of your stud starters so that if there is an injury to your stud running back, the second banana can fill in. For example if you draft Adrian Peterson, you would draft Chester Taylor as a backup in case Peterson is hurt for a game or two.

I will agree it’s not a bad Idea but in shallow leagues (12 Teams or less); you should be able to have a starting running back on your bench. If you are in a deeper league of 14 or more teams handcuffing your RBs makes more sense. Let’s have a look at the few logical handcuffs around the league.

LaDaninian Tomlinson-Darren Sproles – While the chatter was not too serious there was some in the Colts management that suggested LT be cut loose in favor of Sproles, while I don’t think it’s time to put the fork in LT’s Fantasy Football Hall of Fame career it does say something about Sproles ability. If Tomlinson’s toe is not fully healed, Sproles will get you some solid fantasy points.

Brian Westbrook-LeSean McCoy – Westbrook is a fantastic fantasy player, he runs, he catches, he scores lots TDs but he’s fragile. It’s pretty much a given Westbrook will miss a game or two each season. Rookie McCoy is set to become the franchise back when Westbrook’s time is over. He has a similar running style and he’s called into action McCoy should put up solid numbers.

Joseph Addai-Donald Brown – Brown is another rookie with a chance to make an impact early in his NFL Career, Addai has battle injuries recently and could be supplanted in the high powered Indianapolis Colts offence.

Beyond that you may want to consider Handcuffing Marion Barber and Felix Jones but with Jones predicted to have a breakout season you may have to reach (draft a player early than their predicted value) to get him on your team.

Next time we will look at the superstars who are returning from injury and we determine whether they are worth the gamble.