Check Injury Reports......and Check Again
With any information, injuries occur, especially during training camp and preseason, make sure to check all injury reports at least the day before your draft to make sure you don’t draft a running back with an injured hamstring and he is out for 6 weeks.
Get Your Running Back Early
Most experienced GMs, subscribe to the RB early and often theory. This strategy places emphasis on landing 3 or 4 starting RB’s. The logic behind the theory is that the difference between say the 10th ranked and 20th ranked QB may be 30 points over an entire season, though the difference between the 10th and 20th ranked RB may be as much as 100 points over an entire season. This coupled with the fact that most leagues start a least 2 RB means the value of having many top tier RB’s outweighs having top players at QB and WR.
Handcuffing Theory
One secondary theory that emerged from the RB early and often theory is the idea of handcuffing star players to their backup. Handcuffing is the drafting of two players from the same team in the same position to protect the investment in the top player. For example, if one were to invest a high draft pick in a high performance, though injury prone RB, it would be wise to draft the backup to this player in the later rounds. If the star player get injured you then automatically have a new ’starter’ who will often be in position to put up numbers similar to that of the starter.
Grab the QB and WR On the Same Team
A final strategy consists of drafting QB to WR combo’s. This is good for players like Randy Moss and Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, or Terrell Owens and Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys. Any time one of the player scores, the points scored on the play in question double for your team. This is often called double-dipping. Fantasy owners should be warned though that there are some drawbacks to this theory. The first problem is if you have too many players on the same team you will have your good players on the same ’bye’ weeks and will likely be unable to furnish your best team that week. Another drawback is that if you have a QB/WR combo and the QB has a bad week, it will result in both players not performing well on your roster.
