Put Away Those Handcuffs! (Thu 8/26/10)
For many of the people who started playing fantasy football more than a couple of years ago the mantra “always handcuff your star running back” is a sacred drafting strategy. Handcuffing (i.e. - drafting your star running back’s backup), the theory goes, guarantees that you’ll lock in the production from a given NFL team’s running game, even if your star running back is injured for a significant number of games or lost for the season.
This line of thinking is somewhat like the act of buying a put option on a stock you own in order to recoup most of the value of your investment in case the stock’s price does a nosedive. I say “somewhat” because unlike a put option, there’s no guarantee you’ll recoup any of the value of your fantasy football investment through the use of handcuffs. This could happen for one of several reasons: (1) the star running back’s backup at the time of your draft may suffer a significant injury prior to the star running back’s being injured, (2) the star running back’s backup at the time of your draft may lose his spot on the depth chart due to worse-than-expected performance on his part, better-than-expected performance by another running back, or a coach’s inexplicable decision (think Mike Shanahan’s Reign of Terror in Denver), etc, or (3) an injured star running back’s team may change its offensive philosophy after his loss (i.e. - passing more, running less).
Besides the uncertainties associated with the handcuffing strategy, it’s also a bad idea for two other reasons. The first is the associated opportunity cost (i.e.- the value that’s lost by foregoing other possibilities) that comes with passing on the chance to draft an additional backup at other positions, namely quarterback, wide receiver, and tight end. Quick - what do Chad Henne, Alex Smith, Josh Freeman, Vince Young, Sidney Rice, Mohammed Massaquoi, Louis Murphy, Mike Sims-Walker, Pierre Garcon, Austin Collie, Mike Wallace, Malcom Floyd, Brett Celek, and Vernon Davis all have in common? That’s right - in 2009 they all went undrafted in the vast majority of fantasy leagues, and even in the minority of leagues in which they were drafted, they delivered significantly more fantasy value than you would expect from players taken in the late rounds of a draft.
Quick - how many “star running backs” (I’ll define that term to mean running backs who were expected to gain more than 2/3 of their team’s rushing yards) missed “significant” time in 2009 (which I’ll define to mean more than 3 games) due to an injury (which does not include foreseeable ineffectiveness and/or ill-advised Tweeting) and were replaced by the expected handcuff? That’s right - just two: Jerome Harrison, who replaced Jamal Lewis in Cleveland, and Ricky Williams, who replaced Ronnie Brown in Miami. By my count there were 22 “star running backs” available to be drafted in 2009, so that’s less than a 10% chance that your handcuff investment paid off last year (warning: as they say in the investment biz, past performance is no guarantee of future returns). Meanwhile, you gave up the potential fantasy production you would have received if you’d gotten lucky and speculated on one of the undrafted players listed above.
“Okay,” you say, “but there’s no guarantee that even an extremely knowledgable football fan like me would have had the foresight to pick one of the 14 players you listed above - tear down your straw man!” Fair enough, which brings me to my final reason for opposing the handcuffing strategy: the trend among NFL teams towards the dreaded Running Back By Committee (RBBC). Of course, many fantasy football team owners have come to dread the RBBC approach because the NFL teams that use this strategy shrink the supply of “star running backs”. While that’s certainly the case, the positive side to RBBCs is that they increase the number of available running backs who are better alternatives than the handcuffs to star running backs.
Case in point - in 2009 by my count 10 of the 32 teams headed into the season with what I would describe as an RBBC approach. In 2010 that number is up to 13. Yes, that’s three fewer star running backs available to be drafted, but that’s also three more running backs whose expected payoff is better than that of a handcuff. Drafting someone who’s currently not the lead back in an RBBC situation still offers significant upside (the secondary back could move ahead of the lead back if the lead back is injured or the secondary back outperforms the lead back), while offering a higher expected return than a clear second-stringer who would be drafted as a handcuff. The greater the number of fantasy teams or required starting running backs in your league, the more sense it makes to take secondary backs in an RBBC rather than a handcuff.
So put away those handcuffs today, and improve your chances of drafting a winning team in 2010!
Until next time,
The Sherpa
The Fantasy Football Sherpa’s Blog
@fantasy_sherpa on Twitter
The Fantasy Football Sherpa fan page on Facebook
Tags: fantasy football, fantasy football sherpa, fantasy_sherpa, The Sherpa, The Sherpa's Fantasy Football Blog