RB PREPARED
The up-to-date owners land free-agency stars
The unfortunate reported season-ending knee injury to Jamaal Charles is not only going to send fantasy owners scrambling to the free-agent list, it teaches them a valuable lesson: Always do your best to stay updated if you want to remain competitive.
Many fantasy owners of Charles, and some who didn’t even draft him, selected Knile Davis in the later rounds, as it was assumed he would be Charles’ backup with the Chiefs. Davis had registered two 100-yard performances early last season as Charles missed a game and split the workload in another because of an ankle injury.
So naturally, as fantasy owners have been apt to do historically, they tabbed Davis as the handcuff to Charles in the preseason. Others simply took him as a flier after re membering his brief success last year and seeing buzz about Davis possibly stealing some carries away from Charles.
Yet news and trends are always changing in fantasy football. That includes depth-chart updates. If you did not pay attention, you may have missed Charcandrick West starting to siphon some carries away from Charles in Week 4. When news broke that preliminary tests pointed to a torn ACL for Charles, follow-up reports, including one from Bleacher Report, indicated Andy Reid preferred West over Davis as the potential new starting RB. his running style is more similar to Charles’, and Reid reportedly won’t have to alter the offense as much with West stepping in.
While there is also some talk of a time share, the emergence of West as a better waiver pickup right now is a reminder that you need to clear some time to stay abreast of player news. No one expects you to thoroughly scour the news wires every day, but take time consistently to check your favorite fantasy sources that serve as a hub for all the important news. If you were staying on top of things, you would not have been like some fantasy owners, who still had Davis on their roster as of this week, or thought Davis was still the sole guy to step forward when Charles went down.
Many fantasy owners draft projected handcuffs in the summer, and even then, the No. 2 RB si t uat i ons were not f ully cl ear. In August, no one fully knew who the starting RB for the Falcons would be, and Thomas Rawls of the Seahawks was on no one’s radar, even in Seattle. Now you may have to be the Charles owner who has to bid aggressively on West, even though the reports indicated some in the Chiefs organization still believe Davis is the better option. Don’t hesitate to spend a healthy chunk of your FAAB or trade up for a high waiver pick for West if you don’t have any solid options remaining on your roster at RB after losing Charles. If you have the room, roster both, as it is certainly not out of the realm of possibility that Davis could emerge over West, even if the latter gets the first crack. Of course, now you know to stay updated on the situation, or you just received an important reminder to do so.
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