The Art of the "Handcuff"

Steven Jackson’s fantasy owners got to watch the St. Louis running back burst through the Philadelphia defense on a 49-yard touchdown pass on his first run of the season. Instead of happily cheering and texting all their friends that passed on drafting him, they watched him hobble off the field with an injured quad. He returned for just one more play and is out for at least a week. Former Tampa Bay running back Cadillac Williams took his place and produced 140 total yards from scrimmage, though few fantasy owners likely profited from it.

At least Jackson got owners 50 yards and a touchdown before he left the game. Arian Foster, the 2010 top fantasy football player, didn’t even play the first game of the season. He was sidelined with a hamstring injury. This was reported early enough on Sunday morning for owners to start his substitute, Ben Tate, who ran for 116 yards and a touchdown.

Coming into the season Tate was a highly coveted “handcuff” for Foster owners. A handcuff is a matter of insurance for a top draft pick. If he goes down with an injury and you have his handcuff, then you wont have to panic and scour the waiver wire looking for a replacement.

This season, handcuffing top running backs may be essential to success. Maurice Jones-Drew, Darren McFadden, and Frank Gore are all top-drafted injury-prone running backs that join Jackson and Foster as players needing to be handcuffed.

Handcuffing one’s own players isn’t the only way to utilize this technique though. “In my drafts, I stole other people’s handcuffs,” says senior Syracuse University communication and rhetorical studies major John Griffin. “James Starks, Delone Carter, I know the value of having the backup to injury prone players.” Green Bay’s Starks, backs up the oft-injured Ryan Grant and actually led the team in carries in their first game. Indianapolis’s Carter is second on the depth chart to Joseph Addai, who hasn’t played a full season since his rookie year in ’06. “If you have an injury-prone guy then you should have a backup. It keeps you away from the waiver wire,” continues Griffin, who plans to start Starks next week.

With week one in mind, here are five handcuffs worth picking up if they are still available (starter in parentheses):

1. Ben Tate (Arian Foster)

2. Cadillac Williams (Steven Jackson)

3. James Starks (Ryan Grant)

4. Michael Bush (Darren McFadden)

5. Pierre Thomas (Mark Ingram)

Note: Brandon Jacobs (Ahmad Bradshaw), Jonathan Stewart (Deangelo Williams), and Mike Tolbert (Ryan Matthews) are not on this list because they have value without being a handcuff.

For a more comprehensive list of handcuffs, check out the fantasy sports website, Rotoworld.