Impromptu mailbag: Handcuff RBs as roster cloggers, Round 3 strategy, Jayden Reed
The Qs are picking up. Here are some As.
I love to get 90% of the way through a project and then procrastinate the last 10%, so while I should be finishing up my final 4.5 teams and getting all the finalized projections out to you guys — or, short of that, writing the next division in the Offseason Stealing Signals series — I’m instead writing random stuff this week.
Impromptu mailbag? Impromptu mailbag.
For those of you new around here, I often find myself answering the one-off questions in the comments section, or other places, with lengthy answers, that I sometimes then reprint here. I like to get to those specific questions, but I also like to make sure I’m communicating good analysis back to all the subscribers. So that’s just a word of warning that any question you ask might wind up in a bigger column.
Let’s jump to a couple recent ones I’ve wanted to hit on.
From Michael, on the “Cut your fantasy football drafts into quarters” post:
Great post. I’m new around here, so still wrapping my head around some of the basics. With the late round rookie RBs, how do I square the idea that most picks will be cut with the fact that the bet is on their progressive accumulation of volume throughout the season? Feels like I’ll be stuck holding on for several weeks and they could become roster cloggers too.
First, I want to say that while I’ve written before that I love the questions that come in from long-time readers who understand “the basics,” because we can dig in a little bit, this is probably one of my favorite types of questions — someone new, but who clearly belongs. Welcome.
It’s clear you belong because you’re asking a question that’s been an undercurrent of my discussions with the readers in these types of mailbags for years, particularly those readers in standard 12-team “home leagues” where things are a bit looser and it’s not all that difficult to compile a roster filled with targets. That’s carried into the in-season Stealing Signals columns, where I’ve been like, “You can’t cut [so and so],” because I really don’t want you to cut that contingent play, but then readers are like, “OK, but here is my situation,” and I have to acknowledge the reader is right and you have no choice but to let that guy go. In that moment, I’m too fixated on more competitive or deeper formats and not doing a good job of responding where you guys are at in some of your leagues.
So the question gets at this problem, and the short answer is I don’t actually have a clear solution, but it’s a good question we’ve been working through. There are two things I want to note, that I think are useful adds to the discussion, as my thoughts have evolved.
First, these guys do not continue to be roster cloggers all season in the same ways the late-round WRs do. Like, Christian Kirk is the same type of roster clogger in Week 12 he is in Week 3, perhaps more so. If you need him by Week 12, I’d argue your season is probably in a tough spot anyway, or if you need him but aren’t dead, that you could have found a facsimile of him off the waiver wire at that point when you needed him such that it was never worth carrying him all those weeks.
Conversely, while these handcuff RBs with limited roles can absolutely become roster cloggers through Week 5 or Week 8 or whatever — during the early part of the season when you need the flexibility to attack the potential full-season hits on the waiver wire like this year’s Jordan Mason or whoever, and then also probably during select bye weeks that are particularly difficult for that roster — there’s a point, once you’re through the bye week difficulties, where those RBs become the optimal plays for your bench. Down the stretch, there’s often nothing on a waiver wire that isn’t going to be immediately replaceable if it does become necessary (so it’s not great insurance or depth or whatever), other than those types of RBs, who become these extreme upside plays that are one injury away from seeing their fantasy value take off like a rocket ship. Obviously there’s some gray area, and I’m not saying you should literally never carry that boring TE2 so that you can have 100% handcuff RBs on your bench once you get to Week 12 or whatever, but it’s important to understand that the issue created by clinging to these guys through the early weeks does subside in the later weeks when they become the guys that — if you weren’t carrying them before — you actively want to be seeking to add.
That may make it seem like the logical solution is just don’t draft them but wait to add them. But there’s the second point, which is this: There’s actually probably some hidden value in having them, and then cutting them.
One of the big things that you can run into, even in a home league, when you don’t actually take these guys yourself, is that your brother-in-law does take that guy, and then because he’s not all that engaged, or because he’s heavy into how the endowment effect makes us overvalue the bird in hand vs. what’s in the bush, he may just hold that dude all year. There are 11 other rosters, so a lot of the good handcuffs can wind up being held on other rosters where people just don’t move their guys around a lot (which is a feature of your leaguemates that is required to this discussion, because we’re talking about “soft” home leagues where that lack of movement is the whole reason you’re able to get all the guys in the first place).
It seems weird, but in a league with competition like that, you cutting some handcuff that isn’t seeing a lot of work in Week 3 makes it significantly more likely someone else won’t have them when you might want to re-add them in Week 7. You always risk your one buddy who is pretty plugged in going and getting that guy, but I’ve found that fear to be a little overstated, because your plugged-in buddy has a lot of stuff he’s trying to juggle across his available roster spots in a “soft” league, too. He has the same issue as you that he can’t do everything he wants to do.
These two notes don’t necessarily solve anything in this debate/discussion, because there are still questions like how many of these guys you can afford to have at any given time, but I do think the notes provide more clarity on how to approach it, which for me makes the answer basically, “You still take those guys when you would, but you’re willing to cut them, even if you don’t want to.” If they go on to become this season’s best handcuff smash and you had them for a moment but had to cut them, that only hurts if you let the endowment effect also impact you in a way that doesn’t allow you to play optimally.
The correct thought about that note, if you ever look back on that kind of thing, is, “I was on the right guy, but I couldn’t hold him.” It’s still frustrating, but it’s important to understand that type of thing is only a “mistake” with the benefit of hindsight and you do need to have a bias toward action and flexibility with your roster, so you’ll only make yourself worse over the years if you stress about letting eventual hits go instead of recognizing you had the right guy but circumstances meant you needed to let them go, and that’s just another form of bad luck like any other.
So you draft them, and you don’t intentionally plan to cut them; you only let them go if you need to, for that roster. That’s the way to play fantasy — make the best decisions for that individual roster at the time you have to make the decision, with the available info there, i.e. not knowing whether that handcuff’s starter will suffer the serious injury you obviously know to be part of their value proposition but isn’t a certainty at that moment when they are still a backup.
As long as you can overcome that mental hurdle, then you do get to realize some part of the advantage to having these guys for as much of the early-season portion as you can manage. That advantage obviously is that these guys can also hit in the early part of the year.
Take Jarquez Hunter. He may become this year’s version of Kimani Vidal last year as a guy I wanted to hold everywhere as long as I could only to find out that he was never going to be Bucky Irving or Tyrone Tracy (in that rookie RB piece right after the draft last year, if you read the blurbs, particularly the Bucky blurb since I had him ranked too low but acknowledged that was just laziness with my writeup, those were the three I ranked highest on May 8, right after the draft; as last year’s subs know, I got much higher on Bucky from that point until August, but broadly I’m just saying that I don’t throw out Bucky and Tracy as comps for Vidal last year without having placed them in the same range as plays, and I think the point of you take your misses with your hits applies here).
Anyway, Hunter could be Vidal this year, or he could be this year’s version of Bucky or Tracy, and I cut Tracy in a home league early on, and didn’t get him back when he took over the Giants’ backfield. Or, and this is the point I’m trying to make but taking forever to get to, he could be what Kyren Williams was two years ago when he was a late-round pick who just immediately displaced the inefficient Cam Akers basically in Week 1. I don’t think that’s going to happen to Kyren, to be clear, because the team loves him from a personality and leadership standpoint, whereas all signs pointed to them basically hating/tolerating Akers from a personality standpoint. But some version of that where Hunter has an early role wouldn’t be crazy, or Kyren could get hurt right away, or whatever — there’s obvious reason why holding these guys early can pay off quick, and they aren’t actually roster cloggers in those scenarios, they are borderline league-winners because of how massively RB value can shift.
So to wrap it all up, the idea is you do have Hunter, in this example, for some of the early-season weeks, but then if he’s not getting any work, you need to be OK cutting him if you need to, and OK even if later that year he winds up being a star on someone else’s roster, because that’s part of the deal if you’re playing it optimally. That’ll necessarily have to happen some of the time.
But that’s because the simple act of having rostered and then cut Hunter maybe makes him less appealing to other people, or maybe just because in that alternate universe where someone else drafts Hunter, that person just can’t bring themselves to cut him because of the endowment effect. So going through that process increases the possibility that three weeks later, when there’s less strain on your roster spots, you could grab Hunter back and still reap the benefits if he winds up in a workhorse role by fantasy playoff time. By the way, this absolutely was true of my note about Tracy in my home league last year — when I looked back on that, what I realized was that the only reason I didn’t get him back was that I didn’t make getting him back a priority. He didn’t get snatched right up, and lingered for like two weeks, past the point where there was meaningful stress on my roster, and where I was churning other roster spots but didn’t re-add him. I was the fool that decided he wasn’t worth anything once I didn’t have him on my roster.
So maybe there’s a warning there that if you go this route, you should prioritize getting the guy back as soon as you can, because when they aren’t roster cloggers, these guys can become clear fantasy starters in a week, which is of course the whole reason I just wrote several hundred words about how to navigate rostering them.
From JHZ, on the same post:
Fantastic read Ben. One thought it inspired is how much more difficult the predictive work and data cleaning is for analysts who might have a point that applies to a 1-2-2-1-1 starting half ppr league, but not to a 1-2-3-1-1 full ppr (let alone SF or TEP). It gave me a bit more sympathy for the analysts you gently criticize above, and also reminded me of how much work is on us, the readers and players, to apply the analysis to our specific league.
Fwiw, I really appreciate your commitment to talking through principles of strategy as it is much more applicable than “I analyzed 5000 years of data and it says you must alternate RB and WR for the first 10 picks unless you can select Gronk”
I don’t have much to say here, I just really liked this comment, including the point about the sympathy it gives, because absolutely different analysts are talking about different league types and situations (as I hit on in the discussion above, acknowledging my own work in the past had not been very applicable to certain popular league types).
I also wanted to share because, yes, absolutely, there is a lot on you as the reader and player to navigate the analysis for your league and roster.
From Pete, on the same post:
This is probably too specific, but given how some of the upside is capped with the round 3 wideouts (Garrett Wilson, Marvin Harrison, Jaxon Smith-Njigba) due to offensive environments.
How are you playing it in the third if you start Jahmyr Gibbs-Brock Bowers for example? If I’m thinking upside I may just go Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen but may miss my chance to add enough fire power at WR. I am really struggling with the third round this year.
The third round is not a too specific discussion point this year; it feels like this range is basically the whole deal this year. I’m going to share some more thoughts on some specific plays in a question in the “Texts from my brother” section below, but Shawn Siegele and I spent a lot of time on it in the most recent episode of Stealing Bananas, in part inspired by this question.
The answer to this specific question about starting Gibbs-Bowers and where you could wind up with WR firepower is really going to come down to format. I probably won’t do a ton of early QB if I start RB-Bowers, because it can get tough to build in enough RB-plus-WR depth when you hit both onesie positions early, especially if we’re talking “both in the first three rounds” early. That’s an aggressive two step, for sure.
But if you’re in a home league that’s going to give you some soft WR prices later, and maybe where the replacement level is higher (smaller rosters) and the starting lineups are thinner (can only start three WRs), then the strength of the starting lineup gets maximized, and you can probably justify trying to gap both the QB and TE positions with elite talents who perform like it. There are absolutely scenarios where Bowers is the TE1 by a massive margin, and then guys like Jackson or in my opinion the second name is Jayden Daniels (more on his fit in the top four QBs specifically in that “Texts from my brother discussion below”) could gap the QB position by 50+ points, and if we get one of those seasons, then teams who take both Bowers and one of those QBs early are going to do very damn well. It’s just that simple.
I guess my thought is even in those types of seasons, I’m in great shape if I have one of those onesie sledgehammers, and trying to thread the needle of getting both of those outcomes in the same year is probably unnecessary in most leagues.
Put differently, to call back to some of the old draft strategy work, this strategy becomes too many early “detours” to that goal of necessary WR depth, outside of unique circumstances like I suggested above.
That doesn’t answer the question. I guess the answer is maybe Davante Adams? I’m really not sure. Maybe the answer is still going QB there and then just being sure to hammer WR for four straight rounds from Round 4-7, an area where the best pick is probably a WR each round anyway. It constrains you a bit and you can’t grab a fourth-round value on Kenneth Walker or some other opportunity that might present itself, but you start that constraint from the top when you go Gibbs-Bowers, and I’m not sure that’s something you should apologize for, because I do very much support taking those two superstars whenever it makes sense.
I like to keep doors open when drafting, and maximize my flexibility through different areas of drafts so I’m never drafting for need, but this may be a year where the best early start does put you in a bit of a bind you just have to be disciplined and draft out of through consecutive WRs. I did a mock draft with Yahoo! yesterday where in half PPR I started Ashton Jeanty at the 1.10, but then after four WRs went at the turn, decided to just go Bowers (go Raiders?) on the way back. And then in the late third, I didn’t like the WRs enough — and both drafters behind me had started WR-WR — so I just hit Walker in Round 3, and wound up grabbing Marvin Harrison on the way back. Adams was long gone, going 3.05, in this draft.
The point of this description is that after going WR-WR in Rounds 5 and 6, which is a fun pocket where I was very likely to do that anyway, I had other options in Rounds 7 and 8 in an expert league where both QBs and TEs were getting pushed down. If I was in this particular draft in the real world, I might have taken a second TE with Sam LaPorta making it eventually past me to 7.12, which was just silly. But what I did is what I’m describing above — even after Josh Downs went one pick before me at 7.09, I ate my vegetables with picks of Michael Pittman and Brandon Aiyuk before the WR window completely closed.
I share that mostly because it was a situation I was in recently where even when WR really got picked through, there was enough for me to get five good options by the early eighth round after starting with three non-WRs. The two picks in between were Travis Hunter and Zay Flowers, and even though Harrison and Hunter aren’t necessarily my absolute favorite ways to play young WR upside (and Jeanty is probably not my absolute favorite early RB), this roster hits all the requisite notes through “the second quarter” to be viable.
But I do understand why drafting this way makes people come back to not wanting Bowers in Round 2, and preferring a WR instead. I could have taken Amon-Ra St. Brown there, and I did look back on that a bit, but ultimately I want picks that can break fantasy in the early rounds, and I do think Bowers represents that pick better in 2025 than ARSB does. The important thing is if you stack those aggressive non-WR decisions early, understanding what you have to do to make sure that build doesn’t get away from you.
From Michael, on the “Everything you need to know to get up to speed” post a couple weeks ago:
Hi Ben. New subscriber here. Really appreciate this collection of evergreen content all in one location. I’m mowing through it all at a pretty good clip.
Do you have any articles talking about how amateur fantasy football players can best spend their time and attention to take their game to the next level? Obviously devouring your content is essential, but in terms of developing our own takes and how to apply them appropriately in our leagues, what else should we focus on?
Do you recommend deep dives on player profiles? Combing through advanced stats and projections to develop some numerical literacy? Is there merit in watching condensed games from last year or even some player-specific film? Mock draft a ton?
I’m sure it all helps, but I’d love to get your thoughts on what would best help us separate ourselves from the pack in home leagues. Thanks!
I love this question, and welcome Michael, yet another new sub I’m really happy to have around (and for you new guys, you might not know this, but that’s not the case for every sub, ha).
I don’t know that I have a great answer for this question, though. I’m going to kind of think through it. I do think if you’re not playing best ball or those things, but like to mock draft, that just getting draft reps is always helpful. Getting a feel for the different pockets of value and questions you’ll be faced with and what you’re prepared to do, and who you’re prepared to click on, and how that impacts builds — that stuff is pretty darn good in terms of applying good strategy to good reps to then good execution in your leagues that matter.
On the other end, I probably think most casual people get themselves in trouble trying to comb through advanced stats and projections and those things. I tend to think there are a lot of mistakes made even among analysts, valuing the wrong types of things, or misapplying the aggregate to the specific, or taking what amounts to interesting trivia or curiosities and trying to pigeonhole it into actionability when it isn’t actually information that changes the strategy of fantasy football. Everyone’s always trying to level up, and the fact is that again even most analysts are not doing it right (their incentives — to be seen as inventing something, or coming up with some novel idea — don’t necessarily align with your incentives, i.e. to win your league).
It may actually be the case that being on the outside of the industry makes it a little easier to see the truth in the data, but like I said, I probably wouldn’t start there with my time. Most of the interesting or useful stats are going to be found and written about somewhere when you have hundreds if not thousands of people trying to make names for themselves in this industry, and all kind of working at that specific thing in some capacity.
Similarly, I don’t know that most people who watch film understand how to translate that to whether the player will have big statistical success. I think you need a real understanding of how the teams work, schematically, and how the skill sets fit together, to be able to apply what you’re seeing. That said, I do think watching the players and just seeing, “Hey, that dude is explosive as hell,” is actually helpful. It’s good to note, and good to have a feel for what guys are. It’s just hard to apply, so the point would be not to get too confident you’ve uncovered that someone is wildly misvalued by the market because you see something on film.
I think, to your note about player profiles, that one of the things I’d say in the coming weeks is just reading camp reports. Again, I think you have to be very aware of what the players actually are — some analysts who scour camp reports make that their whole analysis, and it’s like, “OK, that player who was a great tested athlete but never produced despite ample opportunity in college — he’s going to look great when they are practicing without pads, and the reports are going to be glowing, but you have to be able to control for what he is because glowing offseason reports don’t mean he can actually leverage looking good in shorts into huge statistical success.” You can’t go draft a ton of a guy just because of camp reports. But I do think understanding everything that’s being said about every relevant player — especially young guys — is probably the No. 1 thing I’d tell someone in your position who it sounds like has some time they want to invest on this, but doesn’t necessarily know where to start. Camp’s about to start, so you could subscribe to some different services like The Athletic or Coachspeak Index or 32BeatWriters and read it every day, to make sure you’re not just hearing what other people think is relevant.
(If you decide to do that, let me know. This is something I think is a hole in the game of a lot of analysts, and I’m not immune to that. One thing I’ve tried to figure out over the past few years is ways I can do as much research as I do but also free up time to read reports and things. Alternately, perhaps we could have a section in the Stealing Signals Discord where some of you guys who are into this kind of stuff can ping me when you find fun stuff. I’d kill for help curating this stuff.)
From Sam, on the same post, where I referenced my TPRR series:
One thing I was wondering if your thinking had changed on at all: Jayden Reed and the Packers WR room in general.
In your TPRR article you were bullish on Reed, does that change at all with the additional competition from Golden + Savion?