Should You Handcuff Your Elite Running Back?

What are you actually buying when you draft the backup?

You take a running back in the first round. A few rounds later, his backup is sitting there. And now comes one of the oldest questions in fantasy football: Do you draft the handcuff?

The logic seems obvious. You just spent one of your most valuable picks on an elite running back. Spending another pick on his backup feels like insurance. If your RB1 gets hurt, you already own the guy who should step into his role. The assumption is that the value of that RB is not just his own elite running ability — it is the offensive opportunities, the scheme and the offensive line as well.

But there are two assumptions buried in that strategy. First, that the player we identify as the handcuff in August will actually be the player who gets the work when the starter is unavailable. Second, that even if he does get the job, he'll inherit something resembling the role — and fantasy production — of the player he's replacing.

And there's another side of the decision that doesn't get talked about nearly as much: What are you giving up to buy that insurance?

Instead of drafting your own handcuff, you could draft another running back at roughly the same cost and give yourself a completely separate path to fantasy value. So rather than trying to prove that handcuffing is good or bad, I wanted to look at what has actually happened when fantasy managers have made that choice.

Start with the backs fantasy managers actually want to insure.

I limited the study to preseason RB1–RB12 running backs from 2016 through 2024. That's intentional. Nobody is particularly worried about protecting the RB23 in a backfield that's already expected to be a committee. The handcuff conversation matters most when you've spent significant draft capital on an elite running back and are considering another pick specifically to protect that investment.

Identifying the handcuffs themselves was also important. I didn't want to look backward after an injury and simply declare whoever got the work to have been the “handcuff.” That's cheating.

Instead, I used preseason ADP along with opening depth-chart and roster information to identify cases where there was clear evidence of who fantasy managers would reasonably have considered the backup before the season. That gave us 44 clearly identified RB1/handcuff pairs.

Then we waited for the insurance policy to actually be needed. Across those pairs, there were 43 fantasy-relevant RB1 absence events to analyze.

Your insurance is unavailable too.

This happened 5 times in 43 absence events — 11.6%. In other words, roughly one out of every nine times the starter was unavailable, the preseason handcuff wasn't available to replace him either.

This distinction ended up being important to the study. If Kareem Hunt is already unavailable when Nick Chubb misses a game, D'Ernest Johnson getting the workload doesn't mean Hunt was the “wrong handcuff.” The insurance policy simply wasn't available when it was needed. That's a different risk.

The handcuff is available. Did he inherit the RB1's role?

The handcuff was available in 38 of the 43 absence events — 88.4%. Now we get to the question fantasy managers actually care about.

For this, I needed to create a definition of “the same role” for analysis purposes. Rather than simply asking whether the handcuff had the most carries on the team that week, I compared his share of RB carries with the role the starter had established in that same offense before becoming unavailable.

One event couldn't be classified because the starter's absence occurred before we had a usable in-season baseline. That left 37 available-handcuff events for the role comparison.

The handcuff inherited the role: 67.6%.

In 25 of 37 events, the handcuff received a rushing role within 10 percentage points of the starter's previous share — or exceeded it.

But the more interesting part isn't that the handcuff got the job. It's what happened to the job after he got it.

This was not what I expected. When the handcuff successfully inherited the role, teams didn't appear to simply recreate the workload of the missing starter. The workload became more concentrated around the replacement.

The RB1s in these situations had averaged a 58.9% share of RB carries before their absences. Their handcuffs averaged 73.2% when called upon. They also received more total opportunities and, on average, actually scored more PPR points than the elite running backs they replaced had been averaging.

That does not mean backup running backs are better than elite starters. Teams may simplify their backfields when a starter goes down. The particular game environments may matter. Some of this could simply be variance. And because some RB1/handcuff combinations appear multiple times in the data, I wouldn't treat these observations as 25 completely independent experiments.

But as a description of what historically happened when the insurance policy successfully activated, it's notable. When the handcuff got the role, he frequently got a lot of it.

What successful role inheritance looked like

Note: “Share of RB carries” measures a player’s share of carries by running backs in that backfield; quarterback, wide receiver and other non-RB rushing attempts are excluded.

The other 32.4% looked completely different.

Then there were the other 12 of 37 events. These were situations where the handcuff was available, but his share of RB carries fell more than 10 percentage points below the role previously held by the RB1. And these weren't generally near misses.

That's a completely different fantasy outcome. The handcuff didn't receive a slightly watered-down version of the starter's role. On average, most of the role disappeared.

Ezekiel Elliott and Darren McFadden

In 2017, Ezekiel Elliott was one of the most valuable running backs in fantasy football. Darren McFadden was being drafted as insurance behind him. Then Elliott's suspension finally arrived. This should have been the exact scenario McFadden owners were preparing for.

Except Dallas didn't give McFadden the job. During Elliott's first absence, McFadden recorded one opportunity. Alfred Morris became the lead back instead.

That's the nightmare version of handcuffing: you correctly predict that your RB1 will miss time, you spend the draft pick to protect against it, your handcuff is healthy — and the team still doesn't give him the role.

But not every reduced-role event was that extreme. Some became committees. Some handcuffs still had fantasy value. The important distinction is that they did not inherit something comparable to the role fantasy managers were attempting to insure.

What if you don't draft the handcuff?

There's still a problem with everything above. We've only looked at what happens after you choose to handcuff. But fantasy drafts have opportunity costs.

If you spend a pick on your own RB's backup, you don't get to spend that same pick on another running back. So for each handcuff, I looked at the other running backs drafted within ±12 RB spots of him that season.

The question was simple: Would you have been better off just drafting another similarly priced running back?

A difference of just 1.1 fantasy points over an entire season. Handcuffs beat the average comparable alternative in 59.1% of the pairs, but across the entire sample the overall production was nearly identical.

There just wasn't much separation. Which means the decision probably isn't really about expected fantasy points. It's about where you want your risk.

Insurance versus diversification.

Drafting your handcuff concentrates your bet. You're essentially saying: I already believe strongly in this offense and this backfield. If something happens to my elite RB, I want to own the player most likely to capture the vacated workload.

And historically, there is a legitimate payoff when that works. When the handcuff was available and inherited a comparable rushing role in our sample, he averaged 16.7 PPR and actually received a more concentrated workload than the starter had previously held.

But the insurance isn't guaranteed. Sometimes your handcuff is unavailable too. Sometimes he's healthy and the team still doesn't give him the role.

The alternative is to draft another team's running back. Now you're saying: Instead of protecting one investment, I'm going to give myself another independent chance at finding a valuable running back.

If your RB1 stays healthy, that second player can still hit. If another team's starter gets hurt, perhaps your alternative suddenly becomes valuable. And if your own RB1 gets hurt, you don't have his direct replacement. You're trading insurance for diversification.

So, should you handcuff your RB1?

I don't think this one deserves a traditional CONFIRMED or BUSTED stamp.

The historical production between drafting your own handcuff and drafting another similarly priced running back was almost identical. What wasn't identical was how that value was created.

If you draft the handcuff, you're buying insurance. In our study, that insurance was unavailable during 11.6% of the RB1 absence events. When it was available and we could evaluate the previous RB1 role, it inherited a comparable or larger rushing role 67.6% of the time.

And when that happened, the payoff was substantial: 73.2% share of RB carries, 19.4 opportunities and 16.7 PPR.

But when the role didn't transfer, the outcome wasn't usually a slightly worse version of the same player. It fell all the way to 26.4% share of RB carries, 8.4 opportunities and 7.0 PPR.

How we tested it.

The study began with preseason RB1–RB12 running backs from 2016–2024. Handcuff candidates were identified prospectively using historical preseason ADP, opening rosters and opening depth charts rather than assigning the eventual replacement after seeing the injury outcome.

The final high-confidence population contained 44 handcuff pairs. RB1 absence events were evaluated using weekly player data. Week 18 was excluded. When a handcuff was available, his first-absence-week rushing share was compared with the RB1's same-season rushing share in active games before that absence.