Are Running Back Handcuffs Worth it?

To handcuff or not to handcuff? That is the question. The answer: Don’t do it that often. Read more to figure out why, and when you should handcuff your running back stud.

To draft the backup to your stud RB or to not draft his “handcuff?” One camps says handcuffs are like buying a lottery ticket — a low cost shot at value that is almost never worth it. The other camp says it’s essential to cover your early round fantasy stud investments. It may be the fantasy football version of “To be or not to be”.

Personally, I’ve had handcuffs both work both ways for me. In 2014, being a big Bengals fan, I drafted Jeremy Hill and subsequently scored the highest points that year of anyone in my league. But in 2016, I tried to swipe popular RB handcuffs off the waiver wire (Derek Henry, Alfred Morris, etc.) but they all just ended up taking up roster spots. Anecdotally, it’s been hard for me—or, I think, anyone—to figure out when it’s worth it to grab that handcuff and when it isn’t.

So I decided to take a shot at finding a definitive answer to this age old question: how often does a running back handcuff actually produce positive value for fantasy teams?

Turns out the answer is: not often, but it’s not that simple either. Read on to learn more.

Handcuffs on NFL teams

Using 10-Team Standard league scoring over the past eight years (since 2009), we looked at the top 10 NFL teams in terms of overall running back performance. We found that 11 of those 80 teams (or 13.8%) had two or more running backs who started at least 1 game and had fantasy values at or above replacement. In 10-Team PPR leagues this number is about the same (10/70 top ten teams since 2010, or 14.3%).

So, the best performing teams at the running back position historically have gotten there by using one guy only. This holds true across all scoring formats (Standard, PPR, and Half-PPR).

Figure 1. 2016 Top 10 Teams for running back Performance Breakdown / “Best Teams” chart for 10-Team PPR leagues. (From this link, you can peruse multiple years and jump to other scoring formats.)

The best performing teams at the running back position historically have gotten there by using one guy only.

In case you’re wondering what the bottom ten teams look like, click here (“Worst Teams” graph) and search through the years in any format. Compared to the Best Teams (who do it mostly with one player), these graphs look like someone vomited RB names all over them. In other words, historically, there are usually multiple negatively-valued running backs on the worst performing teams. So good teams in RB performance tend to have a single Stud while the worst teams tend to have a committee—take that all you three-headed monsters.

Of course, there absolutely are exceptions to the norm. The Chiefs, Bears, and the Steelers come to mind as sustaining multiple positively-valued running backs for the past several years. So it is possible.

But just how many NFL teams per year have multiple fantasy-startable running backs? Again, not many.

That number is 1.4 teams on average in PPR, slightly higher at 1.8 teams in Standard 10-Team leagues. Here we define ‘startable’ as someone who had a positive value versus Tier-2 running backs (RB2s). This means that when they were started in leagues these RBs gained your team points on average versus an opponent’s 2nd best running back.

But still, these numbers are low enough to conclude that in most cases, don’t count on having multiple positively-valued running backs on one NFL team; it’s very much the exception to the norm.

Don’t count on having multiple positively-valued running backs on one NFL team; it’s very much the exception to the norm.

Figure 2. Average Number of NFL Teams Each Season Since 2008 with 2 or More RB’s Average Rank in Tier / ”Multiple Good Players” graph in 10-Team Standard leagues

Okay, so we’ve concluded (on average) that you shouldn’t rely on an NFL team’s backup RB to win your season for you. Duh.

Handcuffs on fantasy teams

But, does this mean you still shouldn’t draft your handcuff? Well, it’s not that simple. Handcuffs can absolutely still add value to your team, especially relative to what is out on the waiver wire. To study this, we decided to look at the drop off from starter to backup in the first week after a starter goes down. We wanted to know what the performance drop off was on average.

To answer this question, we did a Google’s worth of filtering to find situations where the starter (from here called the “Stud”) went down and the backup (from here called the “Handcuff”) was relied upon. (If you want the dirty details of what parameters we used, feel free to email me at: chris@fantasyoutliers.com.)

Unfortunately, there were only 29 cases for RBs since 2008 that fit the robust filtering requirements we used. With that low number, the only conclusion I can reasonably draw from this analysis as it pertains to RBs is that there is a small drop off—a very small drop off, actually—in the first week the Stud goes down and the Handcuff takes over. On average, that drop is from 9.9 points to 9.2 points in 10-Team Standard leagues. In fact, it’s much less of a difference than what happens for WRs or TEs in similar situations.

Figure 3. “Replacement Performance” graph for 10-Team Standard leagues. To see this graph for more league types, you can click on the appropriate league type above the section header here, then click on the Replacement Performance graph.

So what should you do about this? Well, here’s what I think..

Overall, it looks like positively valued RB Handcuffs were:

• Talented running backs who…
• …were either on a high-powered offense (Pit, Atl) or a run heavy team (KC)

When taking up a roster spot with a RB Handcuff, consider the following:

RB-by-committee teams may pay off here and there, but over the course of the season for ‘most’ teams, both RB’s usually end up in the red (negatively-valued)

Getting two running backs on one team who have a positive value versus other starting RB’s is rare — about 1 to 2 teams per year on average.

In that fateful first week after a Stud goes down, his Handcuff has historically performed decently well — about a 10% drop-off.

Given all this, it’s possible that the Handcuff is still your best option versus what else is remaining in the draft or in Free Agency. For example, even if his Average Weekly Value is, say, -2 points/week—that’s still better than someone else whose Average Weekly Value is, say, -6 points/week.

So, while I don’t think that we’ve definitively put to rest one of the great debates of fantasy football, I do think that we’ve found a little perspective on the scale of gains that one can expect from handcuffs. Hopefully, the next time you’re thinking about grabbing a handcuff in those late rounds—whether it’s for your stud or for someone else’s—you’ll remember a few of these stats and make the right decision on whether to handcuff or not to handcuff.

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(If you are unsure how we calculate value, see a technical description or listen to our podcast on value.)