The recent articles on the pros and cons of the handcuff strategy and the article on assessing your own strengths as a GM, along with the discussion board topic of when to draft your 3rd Running Back made me start thinking about my fantasy football strategy.

My first year casually playing fantasy football I very quickly realized the need for Running Backs. I didn't know a thing about fantasy football my first year but some of my coworkers needed another team so I gave it a try. My 2 starting RBs that year were Raymont Harris and Karim Abdul Jabbar. This was well after the prime of their careers. To me the whole season was a struggle to find a decent starter from week to week off the waiver wire. As I said this was a casual league and there wasn't very much trading.

The following season I was asked to join a competitive 3-man keeper league. Most of the owners had been playing in that league for 8 - 10 years. At the time I didn't know what it was called it but I was a stud running back enthusiast because going into that draft I was determined to get 2 Running Backs in the first 2 rounds due to my limited experience the year before. It seemed to work well but due to injuries to my top 2 backs I was always looking for another back off the waiver wire. I had some success with my waiver wire acquisitions that year and went deep into the playoffs.

So since then I have always been a stud Running Back drafter. Always taking 2 backs with my first 2 picks and a 3rd by the 5th or 6th round. I have not had much success with this draft strategy the last couple of years and I think the reason is that after drafting my stud running backs I stick with them too long when they are struggling with injuries. For example Edge last year. I kept waiting for him to return to his 2000 form. As we all know that never happened.

I began thinking that if I had worked the waiver wire better last year (like I had done a few years earlier) I would have had a better season. So based on last years statistics and waiver wire acquisitions in my main league, I wanted to see what kind of production I could have gotten out of the running back position.

How about 1767 total yards and 14 TDs in 17 games. This is the total possible production if I had made every waiver wire move and started the best RB each week. Now I know everybody's saying that's impossible to do so I took a look at a more realistic set of waiver moves and still came up with production of 1622 total yards and 13 TDs in 16 games. I only used 16 games in this scenario because I assumed for the first week of the season that my top 2 running backs would not be injured and also because in my league there were no waiver moves prior to week 1 of the season.

Undrafted Player - Perfect

Undrafted Player - Realistic

I consider the second table of statistics as realistic because each one of these players were undrafted and were obtained through waivers prior to the week they could have started shown in the 2nd table. For instance in the perfect scenario I have Marcel Shipp playing in week 4 and getting 139 yards and 2 TDs In my league and probably in most leagues, Shipp was not on any roster until after that big week so to me it is unrealistic to think anyone would have started him that week. If you did more power to you.

Other players that went undrafted that had some good fill in games include the following:

Some of these games were almost totally impossible to predict. Like James Fenderson in week 12 when Deuce McAllister got injured. Most people thought Curtis Keaton would receive the majority of the playing time. Others were very predictable like Mungro in week 10 after he had a good week 9 and the other Ricky Williams (the one on the Colts) was injured. Same for Gordon in week 12 after his good performance in week 11 and it became clear that he was Faulk's back up and not Trung Canidate.

One of the important factors in being able to use the waiver wire like this is having enough roster space and the method that your league uses for waivers. My league uses a blind bidding process and has no limits on the number of running backs a team can hold so it is very possible to get as many of these players as you want when you need them. If your league uses a worst to first waiver process you may have no chance at getting these players when you need them.

If you had made only 3 waiver moves at the running back position it would have been possible to get this production.

For those of you that may not realize what kind of production 1637 total yards and 9 TDs is that is more total yards from scrimmage than Corey Dillon, Ahman Green, Marshall Faulk and Eddie George had last year. In fact that would rank as 13th in the NFL last year. Not too bad for waiver wire leftovers.

Another player to consider in this scenario is William Green. Now I'm sure he was drafted in every league last year just as he was drafted in the 5th round of my league. However, after his terrible performance for the first half of the season he was back on waivers by the sixth week of the season and then dropped again by week 10 - just in time for someone to pick him up off waivers for his strong finish.

Now I am not advocating not drafting a 3rd running back until very late in the draft. But it seem that if your waiver process allows for these types of moves you could get some very solid and predictable production out of the waiver wire.