Fantasy Football: Why Do We Handcuff?

August 19, 2019 | Fantasy Football Strategy | 4 Comments

We are less than 3 weeks from the start of the NFL season. Redraft leagues are in full swing and Razzball is here to help you dominate. If you haven’t signed up for the 2019 Razzball Fantasy Football subscription to gain access to our tools and league-winning projections, try us out with our 7-day free trial.

If you missed my article last week, I broke down the difference between a traditional handcuff and a scheme based/premium handcuff. Also, I highlighted a few premium handcuffs that you should consider on draft day. If you missed it, check it out here.. Baby, I’m more than just a handcuff. Today our focus moves towards traditional handcuffs.

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Baby, I’m More Than Just A Handcuff: August

by: Nic Romero

Every fantasy season the age old debate resurfaces, to handcuff or not to handcuff. Injuries are guaranteed, knowing who to draft as an insurance policy or to pick up off waivers is a critical component in your journey to fantasy football glory. Luckily for you, I will be here to guide you throughout the season on which handcuffs you should own or which to keep on your watch list. Unfortunately our leagues bench spots are not infinite, some handcuffs need to be drafted and some left on the waivers.

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Weekly Fantasy Football Rankings, Week 2: MB’s Rankings

September 12, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Football, 2018 Fantasy Football Weekly Rankings | 59 Comments

by: MB

Week 1 was packed full of surprises, just like usual. I’ve been saying that weird things happen in September and it’s no cause for overreaction. At the same time, certain things become more clear and so do the roles of the players that we drafted. We find out which wide receivers young quarterbacks tend to target more. We also get an idea of what the work load is going to be for certain backfields when it was unclear before. Everything changes from week to week but we put in the work and research to make sure that we are as accurate as possible here at Razzball. Let’s get to a few highlighted players for week to before you view the rankings in full.

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Ten Training Camp Markups

August 15, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Football, 2018 Fantasy Football Buy/Sell, 2018 Fantasy Football Draft Strategy | 1 Comment

by: Roto-Wan

Real fake football is getting close with fantasy drafts around the corner. Right now you’ll have to settle for fake real football with preseason action. As plays get made and highlights get generated the Ameer Abdulah effect will begin to happen. That cozy vacation town that is your favorite sleeper will soon get ruined by tide pod eating morons that don’t truly appreciate it/them. These names should be at the top of your list to grab before it’s too late.

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Target Practice: Rounds Two and Three

August 2, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Football, 2018 Fantasy Football Draft, 2018 Fantasy Football Draft Strategy | 16 Comments

by: MB

It is officially August and the Hall of Fame game is tonight! Football is definitely in the air. Earlier this week I covered what I will be doing in the first round of drafts, now it is time to move onto the 2nd and 3rd rounds. Of course, if anyone that I wrote about in the first installment slips through the cracks like an Urban Meyer cover up, I would take a stab at those names first. I don’t know what’s going on in your draft! I’m not there. All I can do is go off of ADP and my rankings and tell you who I like and don’t like. Let’s run through some names in the teens through the 30’s, shall we?

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Analysis: Julian Edelman Faces 4-Game Suspension

June 9, 2018 | 2018 Fantasy Football, 2018 Fantasy Football News & Notes |

by: Zach

In a shocking turn of events Thursday afternoon, the NFL world learned of Julian Edelman’s very likely suspension of 4 games for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs.

The Patriots aren’t too foreign to the concept of their star players being suspended for 4 games, so let’s dive into what this suspension means for the Patriots, but more importantly, fantasy owners come draft time.

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Handcuff Report, Week 11: Who the Ekeler Are These Guys?

November 15, 2017 | 2017 Fantasy Football, 2017 Handcuff Report |

by: mikeMaher

The Eagles were on their bye week, so I took Sunday off from football this week. And by took Sunday off I mean I got up early to set my lineups and monitor the actives and inactives for FantasyPros, went to the movies with my wife around noon, and was back home by 3pm for the afternoon and evening games. That counts as taking the week off from football, right?

Two of the top four scoring running backs this week play for the Saints because it is that kind of year. Another one of them was Dion Lewis, one of the 14 running backs on the Patriots (depending on your scoring settings), who rushed for a touchdown and returned a kick for a touchdown. DeMarco Murray was the fourth guy on the list. Since I mentioned the other three, figured I might as well tell you who the other guy was.

Two other running backs making appearances in the upper tier of scorers in Week 10? Austin Ekeler and Corey Grant? Wut. Yup. Ekeler, who is the running back on the Chargers not named Melvin Gordon, rushed 10 times for 42 yards and added five catches for 77 yards and two touchdowns. Congrats to Ekeler’s mom, who finally cashed in on that FanDuel lineup that featured Austin Ekeler for like $1,800.

According to Google, Corey Grant is 25 years old, has the same birthday as my dog Young Money (different year), played college football at Auburn, and currently plays for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He also did this on Sunday:

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Handcuff Report, Week 10: Kamara Already!

November 8, 2017 | 2017 Fantasy Football, 2017 Handcuff Report | 13 Comments

by: mikeMaher

What is more surprising, that Corey Clement scored three touchdowns or that Corey Clement scored three touchdowns and wasn’t even the top scoring running back in Week 9? Yeah, I guess the first one, but the second part is pretty interesting too. Alvin Kamara scored two touchdowns of his own and added six catches and over 150 yards from scrimmage to eek out the top running back spot for the week.

Kamara is finally helping Saints fans forget about Darren Sproles and appears to be the perfect compliment to Mark Ingram in New Orleans. Despite the handcuff label, as I have discussed with a few readers in the past few weeks, Kamara is still valuable in fantasy, especially in PPR formats. The Saints have made it pretty clear since their bye week that they want to get the ball into the talented young running back’s hands and are carving about 15+ touches for him each week. And it is working, so don’t expect them to go away from it anytime soon.

In Philadelphia, Clement scored three touchdowns in a week where many wondered if he would even be active on gameday with the addition of Jay Ajayi. With Zach Ertz a late scratch, all of Philly’s running backs were active, even Wendell Smallwood. However, don’t get used to Clement finding so much success and that many touches going forward. The Eagles are on a bye this week and will have had two more weeks to get Jay Ajayi up to speed. While Clement will probably be active over the forgotten Wendell Smallwood, most of the touches are going to go to Ajayi and LeGarrette Blount. This tweet would say otherwise, but remember this was a blowout in Philly:

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Jay’s Week 7 Review: Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

October 23, 2017 | 2017 Fantasy Football, 2017 News & Notes | 62 Comments

by: Jay

So yeah, I get it, the title is a bit overused in today’s parlance with the bizarre yet hypnotizing Adult Swim “horror-comedy-90’s sitcom” experience bringing the idiom back into style. Combined with the fact that I’d faint if you told me that this headline hadn’t been used by any other football writer before today when referring to Brandin Cooks (seen above with the 11-yard touchdown)… yeah, that saying’s been here before. But how apt! How meta I say! Because that’s exactly how I felt about last night’s prime time rematch of last year’s Super Bowl (did you know? You’d think they would mention that at least once last night!) that 95% of the Northeast tuned out of in the third quarter. There was some horror, some comedy, and of course Bill Belichek carries the whole 90’s sitcom vibe all by himself… but ultimately, it seemed to be a game that’d we’d all seen before and we were all the worse for it. And sure, while it might have been the Falcon’s gameplan all along, to give the Patriots a 23-point lead only to start a miraculous comeback of their own… problem was, the comeback never came and the Falcons looked about as good in the first three quarters yesterday as they did in the last quarter in the aforementioned Super Bowl. But there was fog! And lots of it! (I can’t find confirmation if it was coming out of Cris Collinsworth’s or Bob Costas’ mouth.) So instead of calling this a Super Bowl rematch, maybe we should call it the “Trent Green Bowl”? Kind of an “NFL’s concept” of what it’s like travelling through Trent Green’s head. You know, minus the purple bears and robot unicorns…

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Hit It or Quit It, Week 5: Goin’ to the Chapel and We’re Gonna Get Murray’ed

October 3, 2017 | 2017 Buy/Sell, 2017 Fantasy Football | 6 Comments

by: Jennifer

Hello my loves! Welcome back to another rendition of Hit it or Quit it. How was your week? Did you manage to avoid arrest for indecent exposure? Yes? What is wrong with you? You need to step your game up then, otherwise we can’t be lovers anymore. I had a fairly decent week until I got bent over and did raw in one of my leagues when I wasn’t notified that Michael Crabtree was out and ended up starting him. It handed me my first loss in that league and yeah, I am still salty about getting a case of the CRABtrees. Alas, such is my life. I am still sitting ontop of all of the men in that league, so the view is pretty sweet. Wait, that sounded dirty…heh, heh, heh… Now, I am sure you are all here because, like the song of the Siren, you couldn’t pull yourself away. Again, it is understandable, I am pretty awesome after all. In a week where the Black Widow Curse was pretty quiet (probably from all that man flesh she feasted on in Week 3), it is not guaranteed how long her satiety will last. So, with that, let’s get down to business and stop all this pillow talk. Ladies and gentlemen, convicts and degenerates, ask and ye shall receive. I give you, Hit it or quit it, Week 5…

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Handcuff Report, Week 4: Mixon It Up

September 27, 2017 | 2017 Fantasy Football, 2017 Handcuff Report | 11 Comments

by: mikeMaher

The talk of this week at the running back situation has been Wendell Smallwood. If you don’t believe me, take a scroll through the last dozen or so Razzball articles to see the takes and advice. With Darren Sproles somehow breaking his arm and tearing his ACL on the same play, there are touches available in Philadelphia. LeGarrette Blount is still around and actually looked productive on Sunday, and Corey Clement scored his first career touchdown and could rotate into games going forward, but Smallwood is the guy who stands to benefit the most from the Sproles injury. If you don’t believe me, the Eagles offensive coordinator said as much in his press conference on Tuesday. I have the transcript if you want it.

For me, though, there is a more exciting running back to target. Heading into Week 3, we knew two things: 1. There would be a new offensive coordinator. 2. Marvin Lewis has been coaching the Bengals for 15 years without winning a single playoff game. Number 1 is relevant for fantasy owners, while number 2 is simply fascinating.

The position to watch in Week 3 was running back, as it was expected that we could see more Joe Mixon and less Jeremy Hill and Giovani Bernard. And that is exactly what happened. Mixon looked like the complete running back he was projected to be coming out of college, gaining more than 100 yards from scrimmage on 21 total touches. Expect that trend to continue going forward, as Mixon should only get better and the Bengals should continue to ride him.

I talked up Mixon last week as a great buy-low option prior to the change at offensive coordinator. Hopefully, you either drafted and stashed him or grabbed him on waivers last week because he is less likely to be available this week. But if he is, grab him and go. On the flip side, I would also try to hold onto Jeremy Hill and/or Giovani Bernard if you have the kind of league that provides you with the roster/bench space to do so. It looks like Mixon will be the guy, but we have seen before that one week doesn’t mean everything and that injuries happen all the time. If you have to pick one, I would probably lean Bernard in PPR.

To the charts!

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Handcuff Report, Week 3: Here’s Chrissy! (Carson)

September 20, 2017 | 2017 Fantasy Football, 2017 Handcuff Report | 29 Comments

by: mikeMaher

Another week of the NFL season is in the books, and we have a few more developments at the running back position to keep an eye on. There are a few injuries hitting the wire this week, and out in Seattle, a youngster is outplaying some familiar names. Over in Philadelphia, the guy who is supposed to be the lead back barely saw the field…

Razzball Football’s partner FantasyDraft is starting a new sign-up promotion this week, all new depositing signups receive a free $4 “Everyone Wins” NFL GPP ticket for the upcoming Sunday slate along with offering all players 4% cash back on their initial deposits!

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