Ever been in the back seat of a police car in Tijuana, Mexico wearing handcuffs? Well neither have I. My friend, who will remain nameless at this time, has though. Not a good feeling. The thoughts running through my friend's head went something like this--“I knew I probably shoulda not done that, but at the time it seemed like a good idea…”
Well, that feeling is being echoed by many fantasy footballers over the country right now, as their stud running backs, and “sleeper” quarterbacks, are going down at an alarming rate.
Week One saw Ryan Grant go down. Lucky owners sitting in the pole position of the weekly waiver wire were gifted Brandon Jackson, who may or may not turn out to be a solid player. Regardless, Grant owners would be much happier owning him, than not. Kevin Kolb, who I wrote about last week, also went down, and Michael Vick has quickly stepped in and owned the starting job in Philadelphia. I'm not saying Vick should have been a handcuff necessarily, as that's a tough call with quarterbacks, but with Kolb being unproven going into this year, it wouldn't have been the worst idea. (Editor's note - I, myself, DID NOT draft Vick, even though I own Kevin Kolb in multiple leagues, and I'm hurting).
Week two, and guys like Michael Turner and Ryan Mathews went down with injuries. Neither returned to their respective games, but both watched from the sidelines as their backups stepped up in a big way. Jason Snelling ran for over 125 yards and two touchdowns in relief of Turner. Mike Tolbert, normally a fullback, showed he might be in the running for this year's version of LaRon McClain. The bruising runner pummeled defenders as he rushed for 80 plus yards and two scores.
Both of these backs need to be owned, if they are not already. Right now, there are two concerned owners in your league (of Turner and Mathews), hoping they can sneak these guys on to their squad. The ones who intelligently handcuffed these backups already can sit back and breathe easy, other than the usual gametime decision stuff they'll mostly likely have to deal with this Sunday. For those that didn't handcuff during the draft or before this past weekend, good luck. Hopefully the reason you didn't handcuff them, is because you loaded your team with top quality reserve players, and you can deal with injuries. Either way, I think the first two weeks has shown us the importance of handcuffing top players.
Back to my friend in the police car. A quick trip across the border by two of our other friends, and $300 later from an ATM machine, and my friend was uncuffed and allowed to go. Playing in a money league can bring very similar parallels. For those of you that refuse to learn the value of handcuffing in fantasy football, you just might find yourself feeling like my friend did that night in Tijuana, Mexico. Forehead sweating, windows steaming, mind racing, hoping that silly thing you just did or didn't do, doesn't cost you a lot of cash!
But, most likely, it probably will.
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