Beware: Heavy Lifting With Your Backs

It just never fails. Year after year there are those running backs that we just didn't have rated high enough on our draft rankings. Those backs that we didn't give enough credit to on our Ð''sleeper' or Ð''prime for a breakout' list. And then the new season comes along and you make sure you don't make the same mistake twiceÐ'...

Ð'...Only to be left with yet another bad taste in your mouth. This situation happens to us all every few years, but luckily it is avoidable if you simply look at one of the most overlooked numbers in fantasy football Ð'- total rushing attempts for the season. Sure, we all glance over this number from time to time, but all we are really concerned with are the categories that we can rack up points in, such as rushing yards and touchdowns scored.

All too often these running backs that so entice us one year and fall apart the next do so following a career high of rushing attempts. Does this always happen? Of course not. But backs such as Willie Parker, Tiki Barber and Rudi Johnson are the exception and certainly not the norm.

Following the 2004 season we all had magnificent dreams of fresh white snow and sugarplum fairies dancing happily with Kevin Jones and Dom Davis in the endzone. In 2005, we were cursing the day we ever took them in the first round of that season's draft!

Following 2005, we daydreamed of being able to be the proud owner of LaMont Jordan, Cadillac Williams, Ronnie Brown, Steven Jackson and Reuben Droughns Ð'- only to be extremely disappointed in each going into week 12 of the regular season. In regards to Jackson and Brown, while they are certainly not complete busts, we all expected more out of them this season and rested many of our championship hopes on that assumption.

The moral of the story is, "buyer beware." Keep an eye out for just how