If you have been following our weekly Handcuff Reports and reading them carefully (as I am sure you have been), you may have noticed this little gem that I wrote last week:

“After pass-catcher Ka’Deem Carey went down with a hamstring injury, Jordan Howard entered the game and actually looked pretty good. If Langford continues to struggle, look for Howard to get some more chances. If you are in a deep league, add Howard to your watch list.”

Well, I hope you skipped the watch list and went right to adding him on waivers. And if you did, if you were the person in your league who pulled the early trigger on Jordan Howard thanks to reading this article, then you had a really good Monday. You probably woke up on Monday morning, checked your league news and your team (I am assuming here that no one bothered to watch most of that beatdown), and saw the Jeremy Langford injury news. Then you probably took a sip of your coffee, sat back, smiled, looked at the rest of the teams in your league and said:

“I’ma be all right. I’m straight… Sergio gonna be fine! F*ck a recession… I own 21 Cookaroos. Ya’ll don’t own one Cookaroo. Not one… Ya’ll are f*cked. Ya’ll are f*******cked!”

Okay, now that we got the world’s longest Get Him to the Greek reference out of the way, let’s get back to business. Jeremy Langford left this week’s game against the Cowboys early and did not return, and it has since been reported that he has a severe high ankle sprain and could miss up to six weeks. After Langford left the game, Jordan Howard rushed for 45 yards on nine carries (5 YPC) and added four catches for 47 yards. With the aforementioned Ka’Deem Carey also nursing an injury of his own, Jordan Howard could be in for a full workload for the next six weeks. And if he has success in Langford’s absence, he could very well take the starting job or turn this situation into a timeshare. Even if Carey comes back quickly, he will be the receiving back on passing downs, while Howard should get the start and the majority of the touches. Jordan Howard is going to be one of the most-added players on waivers this week, so get your claims in before Thursday morning. But, alas, this is the Handcuff Report and not just the Jordan Howard report, so let’s get to the rest of the league!

Well, that got ugly fast. And I’m not just talking about this week’s Jaguars – Chargers game. That was an entirely different level of ugly. This week is why so many people have been adopting the zero RB strategy when drafting. They don’t want to risk taking a running back early because of the chance of injury, and they know they will be able to watch the waiver wire and read my handcuff report in order to get a running back or two during the season. If you play fantasy football, there is a good chance one of your running backs got hurt this week. If you drafted Adrian Peterson around the 2nd round or Danny Woodhead or Ameer Abdullah a few rounds later, this was not your week. If you went zero RB or waited a bit too long for running backs like I did in a few of my leagues, this is the week you were waiting for. As far as we know right now, though, Woodhead is the only back to go down who is definitely out for the year. The other two question marks are AP and Abdullah. Neither has a timetable for their return right now. Everyone else should be back in a couple weeks.

Anyway, let’s get to it…