Fantasy football: Replacing Gore, Peterson

The big scramble in fantasy football this week has been the race to find replacements at running back for a couple of premium point-earners.

Minnesota's Adrian Peterson, the third-leading ballcarrier in many scoring systems, sprained his ankle last week against Washington and his owners may have to wait until game time to find out if he'll play against Buffalo.

Even more problematic, San Francisco's Frank Gore, a top-10 points back, suffered a broken hip on Monday night against Arizona and is out for the season.

The Gore injury, and possibly Peterson's ankle if he's out or limited for any significant amount of time, could sabotage some fantasy franchises in the stretch drive to their league playoffs. Taking into account the normal weekly attrition of NFL running backs, owners trying to replace Gore and possibly Peterson are competing for a limited supply of rushers who even project to get a reasonable amount of touches.

So what's the damage control here?

One possibility is to simply go with the injured player's backup. That worked famously when Indianapolis tight end Dallas Clark was hurt and Jacob Tamme stepped in to average nearly 75 yards and score three touchdowns in the last five games. Of course, having Peyton Manning as Tamme's quarterback has been the key there.

But assuming that the replacements get similar workloads as the star first-stringers, the fill-ins could provide a healthy portion of the missing points.

For Minnesota, the replacement is Toby Gerhart, who gained 76 yards and scored a TD when Peterson left the Redskins game. Again, remember that Peterson may still play.

In the case of San Francisco, the next man up is former Eagle Brian Westbrook, who gained 136 yards and scored a touchdown on 23 carries in the game in which Gore was hurt. However, on Sunday the 49ers will play against Green Bay, one of the NFL's tougher defenses.

Unfortunately for owners who had Gore - and the same would be true of Peterson if he's a no-go - there are no alternatives who can adequately replace those points. Owners in leagues with a flex lineup position of wide receiver/running back could consider going with an extra WR.

Otherwise, it's pretty much a guessing game as to what second-tier, thinly owned running back might actually get, say, 15 touches or the rare touchdown, such as - dare we suggest - Miami's Ricky Williams or New Orleans' Chris Ivory.

Don't think so?

Me neither.