With fantasy drafts behind us, it is now time to start focusing on roster management. This is truly how you win your fantasy football leagues. It does not matter whether you had a great draft or a terrible draft. You are still in the running to win your league if you manage your roster efficiently.
With astute roster management, you can gain little edges here and there over your opponents. These little edges along with some luck can help you win your fantasy championships. Luckily for you, the League Winners will have weekly articles to help you manage your roster in the most efficient way possible. The League Winners will have weekly Waiver Wire, Start/Sit articles, along with many more. Like last season, I will be writing a weekly article highlighting some roster cloggers.
What is a Roster Clogger?
A roster clogger is a player that you have on your fantasy football roster that is taking up a valuable bench spot that could be used on another player. These are guys that will almost never make it into your starting lineup.
Over at @FFLeagueWinners this season we have tons of weekly articles that will be aimed to help you win your fantasy leagues. Each Tuesday I will be writing an article about some potential roster cloggers. But what is a roster clogger?
— John Jermyn (@ff_johnj) September 7, 2021
Last year players like Jonnu Smith, Ronald Jones, and Robbie Anderson found their way onto several roster clogger articles. They were sitting on benches, but not getting into starting lineups.
Who Qualifies as a Roster Clogger?
For me to consider a player a roster clogger they need to be rostered in at least 50% of fantasy football leagues while also being started in less than 50% of leagues. They are players that are on rosters in the majority of leagues, while also being on the bench in the majority of leagues.
Those two numbers will remain constant throughout the season. But there will be other factors that come into play during different parts of the season.
For example, there are certain times of the year that it is advantageous to roster RB handcuffs and certain times where this can be a problem for your team. At the beginning of the season before the bye weeks start, rostering handcuffs can give your team a big advantage if the starter is to get injured. But during bye weeks in the middle of the season using your bench spots on players that need an injury to become relevant can make it tricky for you to get wins. Then again, as playoffs approach it is important to start to build some reliable depth and safety nets to help you make a long playoff push.
What to do with Roster Cloggers?
First of all, if your fantasy football league is deeper than a typical 12 team league it may not actually be the right move to drop any of the players that I will be discussing as a Roster Clogger. So it is important to consider your individual leagues whenever you are making a roster decision based on this series, as well as any other advice you get.
In general, if you have a roster clogger, I would just drop them. You can then try and add a player who may actually get into your starting lineup from free agency. This article will be released at some point each Friday of the season. Meaning your leagues first waiver run has likely already occurred. So make sure to pay attention to who was dropped because sometimes these players are valuable.
Week 1: Roster Cloggers
As we enter Week 1, there is not really a lot of data to work from. So instead of giving you a big list I am only going to go with two players that really jumped out at their current roster percentages. Future articles will try to highlight at least one player at each position. Since there are so few QBs and TEs rostered at a given time, there are likely weeks I skip those positions in this list. In addition, I will try to sprinkle in some names of players I believe are worth adding in place of the Roster Cloggers you should be dropping.
Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville, QB, 57.7% Rostered
According to PlayerProfiler, Trevor Lawrence ranked near the bottom of the league in nearly all metrics in 2021. This was partly due to poor play from the offensive line. But there were plenty of things that Lawrence could have done better himself. His clean pocket completion percentage of 67% ranked 33rd in the league.
At 57.7% rostered, Lawrence is currently the 17th most rostered QB in ESPN fantasy football leagues. In a single QB league you should not be rostering Lawrence at this point in the season. If you used an early draft pick on QB you likely will not need to start Lawrence except during bye weeks or because of an injury. If you drafted a QB later you are likely going to be streaming anyways.
I have seen Lawrence on several sites a decent streaming option for Week 1. I do not actually disagree with that. If you have Lawrence on your roster to stream and start him this week then by all means do it. But if you have him on your roster as a bench QB, you are wasting valuable roster spots. These spots should be used on players that have low rostership that could end up getting more usage than expected. Players like Khalil Herbert, Kenyan Drake, and Darrell Henderson are much more worthy of your final roster spots.
You Should Consider Stashing These 4 Running Backs Who Are Available in a High Percentage of ESPN Leagues:
— Moody (@EricNMoody) September 6, 2022
-Khalil Herbert (76.6%)
-Kenneth Gainwell (72.2%)
-Isiah Pacheco (81%)
-Rachaad White (86%)
If you had to pick one, which one would you choose?
Russell Gage, Tampa Bay, WR, 64.6% Rostered
Prior to the season, Gage was someone that I was fairly excited about. This offseason, Brady personally reached out to Gage to get him to sign with the Bucs. Brady has shown us time and time again, that if he likes a player he will target them. In addition to this it seemed like Chris Godwin would miss part of the season making Gage the WR2 on the team.
Unfortunately for Gage, it looks like his path to being the Bucs WR2 only got more difficult this offseason. First of all, in late July the Bucs signed Julio Jones. Just a couple weeks later, Gage sprained his ankle and his status for Week 1 is still up in the air. While he missed time, Julio and Brady apparently developed some chemistry that should carry into Week 1. Lastly, it appears that Chris Godwin is trending towards being available for the opening game.
Good news: #Bucs WR Chris Godwin has taken off the knee brace he's been wearing throughout training camp and appears as close to 100% as he has the entire offseason.
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) September 5, 2022
Tampa plays the #Cowboys on Week 1 and could have Mike Evans, Godwin, Julio Jones and Russell Gage in the lineup.
There is very little reason to feel comfortable putting Gage in your starting lineup and he is not worthy of a roster spot until he proves he can be a consistent target in the offense.
