The decision to handcuff or not depends on several factors, including the specific players involved, the depth of your league, and your overall team strategy. As we enter redraft season, it is a good time to look at how you should be handling the running back position.

With the professional game being geared towards offenses being able to put up points, it makes sense that we are seeing a positional renaissance. Perhaps we first need to decipher what, exactly, we are looking for in a true RB1. Like most things, this has turned into a polarizing discussion within the fantasy community in recent years. The landscape for the position has seen quite a change in the last 20 years, but there is some evidence to suggest the running back position is making a comeback for fantasy purposes.

2023 Fantasy Football Running Back Handcuffs: Projected starter and handcuff for each NFL team

Last season, 15 running backs had 270 or more touches which was the highest mark in almost a decade in the league. Additionally, 15 backs rushed for over 1,000 yards which was over twice as many as in 2001. Carries aren’t the only stats that matter, however, as running backs are now being used in the passing game more than ever before. This is what gives Christian McCaffery his overall RB1 status and makes Austin Ekeler a clear-cut top-5 running back. It gives players like Tony Pollard and Rhamondre Stevenson a chance to jump into that mix as well.

However, the question of whether or not to handcuff your running back is still a difficult one to answer. Today, we will look at the different types of handcuff scenarios.

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Running Back Handcuff Strategy & Advice

Traditional Handcuffs

In certain formats, like best ball, the Zero-RB strategy has made it almost impossible to handcuff. In those leagues, backup running backs are snapped up quickly as a hedge for a wide receiver-heavy build.

Traditional handcuffing is more of a traditional re-draft league strategy. In that format, rather than simply treating this as a matter of locking up our starter’s handcuff, we need to think about maximizing our picks. How we approach handcuffs on draft day can help us avoid sinking all of our FAAB money on an important backup during the season. It can also provide us with the opportunity to draft a weekly starter if we can identify committee backfields with two viable options who will get touches.

Last year, 10 of the top 12 fantasy running backs on a per-game basis all played at least 15 games. That is somewhat of an anomaly, and you have to go back to 2019 to find a season where players in the position stayed this healthy. What’s even more incredible is that of the top-20 running backs in terms of touches, only Dameon Pierce and Brian Robinson missed more than two games.

As such, we had to dig deeper than ever in 2022 to find backups who fit the mold of a traditional handcuff. One scenario that played out was in Cincinnati, where Samaje Perine stepped in for an injured Joe Mixon in Weeks 12 and 13 last season. Perine kept a lot of fantasy teams afloat those two weeks, turning in back-to-back RB1 performances. Perine wasn’t considered by most to be a “top” handcuff, but he stepped into a role where he received 48 combined touches over those two weeks. That is exactly what we are hoping to capture.

So what should we be looking for? For starters, look for backup running backs that can catch the ball out of the backfield. Dual-threat backups tend to be easier to target for handcuff purposes as they oftentimes can get on the field early in the season. Perine had begun chipping away at Mixon’s receiving role a few weeks before Mixon got injured. He had earned the trust of the coaching staff to the point where he was more involved each week. That is another ingredient here that I hope to help get you onto early: Running backs who gain the trust of the coaching staff throughout the season. These are running backs in the mold of Jaylen Warren and Rachaad White, both of whom saw elevated snap and touch rates as the season progressed last year.

Committee Backfields – How To Approach Them

Committee backfields have seen a surge in recent years, although, as evidenced earlier in this article, we are seeing more teams feature one back prominently. Three of the top rushing offenses from 2022 – Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington – will all have committee backfields this season. Does this mean we should avoid these backfields for fantasy?

The answer, in a vacuum, is no. What we do have to determine is whether or not the players in question are worth taking at their respective ADP. Roster construction guides most of what we do in the draft room, and committee backfields can be costly to acquire. This especially applies to the player on the short side of the committee. Last season, A.J. Dillon was a top-60 player in terms of ADP because the consensus was that he had enough independent value to carry that price tag. Dillon, of course, finished as the RB30 as Aaron Jones played all 17 games and amassed 269 touches.

Targeting running backs in a committee can be profitable, but you need to understand ADP relative to value. If we view the draft on a micro level, we can see where pockets of value open up in certain rounds. In the case of A.J. Dillon, I don’t believe he was a bad pick last year because Aaron Jones played in every game and kept him from having a bigger role. Dillon was a bad pick because taking a committee running back in the first five rounds is a poor optimization of draft capital. That is a big reason why I am not going to click D’Andre Swift‘s name much this year, as he falls into the same ADP range as Dillon last year and has a much wider range of outcomes.

The Final Word

If you manage to snag a top-tier running back early in the draft, picking up his primary handcuff in the later rounds makes sense in redraft leagues. Samaje Perine, Rachaad White, and Zonovan Knight all had RB1 weeks last year, and that was largely based on volume. Opportunity is everything for running backs, so 15 touches in a given week can push a player to fantasy relevance.

Research is important for handcuffs, so be sure to do your homework and evaluate your targets before the draft. Sniping a handcuff from another team sometimes works just as well, and with true RB1 running back depth being so dangerously thin, some of the third and fourth-tier backs will provide a lot of value as the year wears on.

In any event, it is better to roster a handcuff than it is scrambling to the waiver wire or blowing your FAAB budget trying to acquire one. In the event of an injury, it is better to have overprepared and overstaffed your fantasy backfield depth. You can also check out my weekly handcuff report, which will begin before Week 1, to help guide you.

2023 Fantasy Football Running Back Handcuffs: Projected starter and handcuff for each NFL team

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Jason Kamlowsky is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Jason, check out his archive and follow him on Twitter @JasonKamlowsky.