What a Backup Is Actually Worth

The instinct after an injury is to find "the backup" and assume he becomes the starter. In practice teams frequently split the vacated work: one player takes early downs, another takes passing downs, a third takes the goal line.

A back who inherits 60% of the carries and none of the receiving work has inherited much less than the raw workload suggests, especially in PPR.

Break the vacated role into its parts and ask where each one goes:

• Snaps — does one player absorb them, or is it a committee?
• Targets — passing-down work often goes to a different player entirely.
• Goal-line and short-yardage — the highest-value, most concentrated component, and frequently assigned separately.

A replacement who gets all three is genuinely valuable. One who gets only early-down carries on a poor offence usually is not.

The game immediately after an injury tells you less than it feels like it does. Game script distorts it — a blowout produces a run-heavy or pass-heavy sample that is not representative — and coaching staffs often adjust in week two once they have watched the tape.

Weigh the second and third games more heavily than the first, and weigh usage more heavily than points throughout.