Handcuffs and insurance: pricing backup running backs with ADP

What a handcuff costs

A handcuff is an insurance policy, and an insurance policy has a price. On a draft board the price is the pick you spend on the backup, and the board publishes it. The question is never whether to buy insurance. It is whether the premium is fair for the thing it covers.

The board's handcuff chart defines a handcuff as the depth chart number two behind a starter the board ranks in the top 24 at running back. Here is what the room charges for the backups to the first and second round starters on September 3.

Source: Parlae handcuff chart and board, Sep 3 2026, PPR.

The backups to the second round starters go in rounds 13 and 14. That is the cheapest insurance on the board: a pick that would otherwise buy a kicker or a fourth tight end, spent on the one player who inherits a top 24 role if the starter misses time.

The backups to the first round backs are cheaper still, because most of them are not priced at all. Jacob Saylors behind Gibbs, Seth McGowan behind Taylor, Jaylen Wright behind Achane do not appear on the feed, which lists only players drafted often enough to average. Brian Robinson behind Bijan Robinson is priced at 162.7 on 47 drafts. Kaelon Black behind McCaffrey at 163.0 on 69. Ty Johnson behind Cook at 168.2 on ten. The room is not pricing these players; it is barely noticing them.

When the premium is not worth paying

Read the table from the bottom and the premium shrinks fast. Gainwell goes 44.5 picks after Irving. Monangai goes 65.6 picks after Swift. The closer the backup's price is to the starter's, the more the room believes the backup already has a role, and the less he is a handcuff at all.

Then there are the pairs the chart lists that are not handcuffs by any useful definition. Rhamondre Stevenson goes at 61.6 and TreVeyon Henderson at 64.7, 3.1 picks apart. Jaylen Warren at 62.3 and Rico Dowdle at 73.6. J.K. Dobbins at 87.1 and RJ Harvey at 94.6. Chuba Hubbard at 82.0 and Jonathon Brooks at 92.9. When two backs on one team are priced inside 12 picks of each other, the room is telling you it expects both to play. That is a committee, and buying both is not insurance. It is paying twice for one backfield.

Tony Pollard at 68.4 and Tyjae Spears at 128.5 are the counterexample on the same list: 60 picks apart, one starter and one backup, priced like it.

The one that just paid out

Insurance is abstract until it pays. On this board it just did. Josh Jacobs was priced at 32.0 on the previous board day. The Packers placed him on the commissioner exempt list on August 30, and by September 3 his average had fallen to 55.8, with a latest pick of 119. MarShawn Lloyd, the backup, went from 139.3 to 125.1, and the rooms drafting after the news have taken him as early as pick 49.

A drafter who bought Lloyd in the 12th round a week ago now owns a player the current room prices in the fifth. The premium was a 12th round pick. That is what the insurance is for, and it is the reason the room's price for the second round backups, at 150 to 166, is the best deal on the board every year. You do not know which one pays. You know that one of them usually does.

Whose insurance to buy

Buy your own. The backup to a running back you do not own is not insurance; it is a bet that another team's starter gets hurt, and if he does, you own a starter you have to trade for value against a room that knows exactly what you have. The backup to your own first or second round back is different. If the starter goes down, your lineup does not change. That is worth a 13th round pick every time and it is not worth a 9th round pick often.

The exception is a backup the room has already started pricing as a starter, which is what the Lloyd move looks like today. At 125 with a floor of 49, he is not insurance for anyone; he is a player with a role, and he should be drafted like one. The handcuff chart is where you find those before the room finishes repricing them.

The decision

For every running back you take in the first two rounds, write his backup's name from the handcuff chart beside him on your sheet, and take that backup in round 13 or 14 if he is there. Do not take him earlier; the room prices him at 150 to 166 and there is no reason to pay 120. Do not take another team's handcuff before round 12. And when the chart shows two backs on one team priced within 12 picks, that is a committee: pick one or neither, never both.

What to do with this

1. After your second round pick, open the handcuff chart and note the backup for each back you own and his ADP. Anything priced past 145 is a round 13 or 14 pick and you leave him there until then.
2. Before you take any backup, check the gap between him and his starter on the running back board. Under 12 picks is a committee and you treat him as a standalone pick, not as insurance.
3. On the morning of the draft, read the movers list. A backup who has moved 10 picks or more earlier in a day has news behind him, and he is no longer priced as a handcuff. Decide whether you want him as a starter before someone else does.