Just had first nomination in a $500 auction draft and threw out “B. Robinson” (the backup) as the first pick and watched two separate people bid and the guy won and wasted 45 out of 200 total auction budget. It’s a legitimate strategy if you are playing auction!

*I would never do this in a home league or with friends. This is just a random $500 yahoo league where there isn’t even a league chat. Don’t sign up for a $500 league if you are going to make novice mistakes

Every league I'm in, everyone panics and hordes running backs. They are quickly going 30-40 picks ahead of my rankings and ESPN adp.

I'm having trouble figuring out how to capitalize on it.

Strategy I took in a 12 man league was Chase, then McBride (best RB was Kyren), and then Nico Collins (next rbs up were Etienne, skattebo, love).

I took Montgomery as my rb1 next round, but after that I realized how far gone the field was... Next rb would be Treyveon Henderson...

So I picked up Egbuka as my flex, settled for Marshawn Lloyd as my rb2... (Jacobs went semi early in the later rounds) and then got Brooks, Pollard, Rachaad White, Chris Rodriguez, Tank Bigsby and Tyler Allgeier in the later rounds.

I can't figure out if I tried to get too cute with value and ruined my team... Or capitalized with some talent that will be fine without a solid rb2...

Starting lineup is as follows. And remember, it's a twelve man league. Ppr.

Trevor Lawrence

David Montgomery

Marshawn Lloyd

Jamar Chase

Nico Collins

Trey McBride

Emeka Egbuka

Just a reminder to all, because Luther Burden III’s ADP dropped since his injury (full practicing again), his coach in May was “buying stock” in this guy.

I think his ADP dropped too far.

Who else we “buying stock” in this weekend!?

Did I win or was it even? PPR League, 2 QB. I want to flip Garrett Wilson, and Tuten for Drake London.
This is my team:
Hurts
Burrow
Bijian
Kenneth(Now Omarion)
Chubba(Now Tuten)
Nico
Higgins
Loveland
Olave(Now Garrett)

For this mythbusters article, I tested the data on handcuffing your elite RB as insurance.

The toughest part was defining what population for the study. I didn't want classic timeshare situations to count as "handcuffs", more the elite RB who owns a large % of carries in the offense.

I started with 2016–2024 preseason RB1–RB12 ADP RBs. I used preseason ADP + opening rosters/depth charts to identify the guy fantasy managers would have actually considered the handcuff BEFORE the season started. I didn't want to look backward after an injury and just call whoever got the carries the “handcuff.”

That left 44 high-confidence RB1/handcuff pairs and 43 fantasy-relevant games where the RB1 was unavailable.

First thing I tested:

When the Handcuff was Needed, Were They Available?

The handcuff was also unavailable in 5 of those 43 cases (11.6%).

Some examples:

• Nick Chubb / Kareem Hunt, 2021 — Hunt was already on IR when Chubb missed Week 10
• Alvin Kamara / Tony Jones, 2021 — Jones was still on IR when Kamara missed Week 10
• Antonio Gibson / J.D. McKissic, 2021 — McKissic was on IR when Gibson was unavailable Week 17

So right off the bat, there's about a 1-in-9 historical failure rate where your “insurance” wasn't even available when you needed it.

If they were available, how'd they perform?

I compared the handcuff's share of RB carries to the starter's established share before the injury. I considered the role to have transferred if the handcuff came within 10 percentage points of the starter's normal RB carry share.

There were 37 cases we could classify.

25 of 37 (67.6%) inherited a comparable or LARGER rushing role.

And when that happened, the results were actually amazing (take note DFS players)

RB1 before injury → Handcuff after injury

RB carry share: 58.9% → 73.2%
Opportunities/game: 16.9 → 19.4
Total yards/game: 88.7 → 91.4
PPR/game: 14.9 → 16.7

The 73.2% surprised me the most. When teams actually handed the job to the backup, they tended to concentrate the backfield more around them, not less. Assuming this is a factor of a skill disparity between RB1-> RB2 being smaller than RB2 -> RB3. In these handcuff weeks, they just trusted the RB2 who had probably previously getting some work to take on not just the new role of RB1, but some of their old RB2 work.

Some individual examples:

Latavius Murray replacing Alvin Kamara, 2019 W7:
93.1% of RB carries, 33 opportunities, 32.0 PPR

Tony Pollard replacing Ezekiel Elliott, 2020 W15:
75.0% of RB carries, 21 opportunities, 31.2 PPR

Justin Jackson replacing Austin Ekeler, 2021 W16:
68.8% of RB carries, 20 opportunities, 34.2 PPR

Jamaal Williams replacing D'Andre Swift, 2022 W4:
82.6% of RB carries, 22 opportunities, 23.9 PPR

So that's a pretty strong argument for handcuffing.

Except...

The other 12 of 37 cases were not great.

When the handcuff was healthy but didn't inherit the role:

RB carry share: 73.8% → 26.4%
Opportunities/game: 19.5 → 8.4
Total yards/game: 91.8 → 35.1
PPR/game: 15.8 → 7.0

It wasn't usually “the backup gets 80% of the starter's role.”

The role basically disappeared.

2017 Darren McFadden might be the best example. Ezekiel Elliott finally got suspended, which was basically the exact reason people drafted McFadden. McFadden got one opportunity in Elliott's first missed game. Dallas gave the backfield to Alfred Morris instead.

What if I don't handcuff?

But I still didn't think that answered whether handcuffing was actually worth the draft pick, because there's an opportunity cost.

So I compared every handcuff against other RBs being drafted within ±12 RB spots of him that year.

Season-long results:

Handcuff: 110.1 avg PPR points
Comparable RB: 109.0

10+ PPR games: 4.41 vs 4.44
15+ PPR games: 2.20 vs 2.19
20+ PPR games: 1.02 vs 1.06

Basically identical. A difference of 1.1 fantasy points over an entire season.

That's why I don't think this myth is really CONFIRMED or BUSTED.

You're making two different bets.

Draft the handcuff and you're buying insurance on a backfield you've already invested heavily in. If the starter goes down and the role actually transfers, history says that payoff can be huge.

Draft another team's RB instead and you're diversifying. That player can become valuable without anything happening to your RB1.

Historically, neither strategy produced meaningfully more fantasy points, but I thought it was worth sharing the results anyways. Let me know what you think!

Full study/methodology:
https://edgelineff.com/insights/mythbusters-rb-handcuff-value.html

I have Saquon, Swift, Monogai, Henderson, Bowers, Ceedee, AJB, Olave, Loveland, Mclaurin, Rhomadre and Lamar. This is a dynasty league, I have a feeling Kenneth pops this year but wanted that home run hitter with Bijan.

I was 1.10 in a 10 man league. Both JSN and ARSB dropped to me, the next best running back on the board was Omarion Hampton. I decided to take JSN and Omarion b2b in 1.10 and 2.1. Should I have gone with double elite WRs in hindsight?

Here’s the team.
QB: Dak
RB: Omarion Hampton
RB: Javonte Williams
WR: JSN
WR: Olave
TE:Loveland
Flex:Pittman
Flex:Jameson Williams
Bench:
Mark Andrews
Rico Dowdle
Chris Godwin
Chuba Hubbard
Jerry Jeudy
Baker Mayfield
Keaton Mitchell (sorta handcuff to Hampton)

Third round. Who you taking ?! Javonte for the floor or love for the home run swing?

Have Bijan, Nico, JJ and CeeDee. There’s a chance I could get Love with my 1st pick. It would be 3rd overall. Pick 1 is going WR and pick 2 is heavy lean towards Skat. Other options is Etienne.

Gotta pull the trigger right?

I have the 10th pick in a 10 man league full PPR. If James cook falls to me at 10 would it be too risky drafting him and Josh Allen together as a stack? I know this seems early for Josh but I had this stack last year and won the league undefeated. Cook is a much higher pick this year making it a little harder to justify.

My league has positional limits of 4 rb and 4 wr, does this make Bowers a higher priority for the positional advantage? I draft 6th and was thinking to take Bowers at 19.

The 7.01 is Derrick Henry. Is it worth it to do this trade if I’m trying to compete and win now or not really?

MarShawn Lloyd v MIN
Rico Dowdle v ATL
Jadarian Price v NE

I can see an argument for all of them, what do you guys think?

12-man redraft, drafted from the 1.12 after winning last year. 3 WRs, no D/ST

QB: Lawrence
RB: C. Brown & Saquon
WR: Flowers, Waddle, Odunze
TE: Kraft
FLEX: Hubbard or Godwin
K: Reicherd

Bench:
Doubs, J. Reed, Bigsby, T. Ferguson, K. Murray

I broke two rules of having a backup QB and a backup TE, but I drafted Ferguson with the last pick of the draft purely incase Kraft starts slow on a snap count. So he’ll probably end up on waivers sooner than later. Bigsby is my handcuff for Barkley. Murray just bc I think he’ll be a lot better on the Vikings with KOC, rushing upside, and might be of use when Lawrence has a bad matchup or his bye.

My buddy took Hampton at the 1.04 and Lamb went right before me, which derailed my plan A and B. Not exactly the route I wanted to go, but it wouldn’t be fantasy football if you didn’t have to adjust on the fly. Flame if you’d like, I like honesty

Trying to decide between the two in keeper league auction 3 keepers ...the other two are no brainers ....but of these two can't decide. Standard scoring non-ppr

Hey just completed my draft and have these 2 TE on roster. I’m worried starting Kittle early in season and especially week 1. Who would you guys start week 1 with my options??? Do you think Kittle is good to go only 8 months past achilles surgery???

I cannot find a single draft simulator in which you can control every pick and it is infuriating. If anyone knows of one, PLEASE drop the link below. Every damn site only lets you do it against AI and control a single pick, why can I not find one in which I control every pick.

Commissioner told me it was the “only” time everyone was available at 10 AM on a Sunday after I told the group I was proposing to my longtime gf at noon on Sunday so I wasn’t available to draft that evening. Terrible headspace for getting my players for the next 5 months. I honestly hate my team but I got a funny name out of it at least. Puka her Boutte till she Skatt

Just had to voice my frustrations into the Reddit void

What would your thoughts be on this roster construction? What to focus on heading into the season or on waivers? Does it have the juice to win? Should more focus be on high floor rb's or big upswings? This is more or less the projected roster.

• QB: Josh Allen
• RB1: Travis Etienne
• RB2: Bayshul Tuten
• WR1: JaMarr Chase
• WR2: Luther Burden
• TE: Brock Bowers
• Flex: Davante Adams
• K: Cam Little
• Def: Green Bay

Bench Guys: Jordan Mason, Kenny Gainwell, WanDale Robinson, Jonah Coleman, Keaton Mitchell, DeZhaun Stribling

rate the team

QB. Drake maye
RB. Jahmyr gibbs
RB Jeremiyah love
Wr AJ brown
Wr Zay flowers
TE Pitts sr
Flex Jamo Williams
Def Ravens
K. Matt hevis