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Without Quagmire, Cleveland and Mayor Adam West, Peter and Brian Griffin on "Family Guy" are just a fat cartoon dad and his dog. Because everything great needs a good supporting cast. You'll be reading plenty more about strategy in the first three rounds of your snake league fantasy football drafts this year, but I'm here to talk about what's beyond that. The "side characters," if you will.

It's Round 4. What do you do, punk? Naturally, the answer depends on how your first three rounds went. Did you go the traditional RB-RB-WR route? Did you sneak a quarterback in there? Were you a late-first-round selector who couldn't resist the WR-RB-WR combo? Rounds 4 through 16 can best be described as rounds of contingency, where you must manage not only the remaining talent pool, but your evolving team needs. When do you take a tight end? When do you think about a second quarterback, a kicker or a defense? When do you take fliers on prospects or handcuffs? Read on, and don't let the Evil Monkey in your closet scare you. It'll be all right.

If you don't have two running backs by Round 4, your hand is forced: You must take one now, and you must consider reaching for project backs in Round 5 and beyond. The idea behind that is this: If you have studs at quarterback and wide receiver, throw a lot of names into your No. 2 RB mix and hope one sticks. We're talking players like Julius Jones, Fred Taylor and Selvin Young, or one of a few rookies, such as Jonathan Stewart, Matt Forte or Kevin Smith. (We're also talking about a standard ESPN.com 10-team league here; deeper-league owners clearly won't be able to get players this good this late.) In shallow leagues, this is actually a respectable strategy. We think we know so much about what to expect from the supposed rushing studs from 2007, but let's face it, we know little. Injuries and overall crumminess can take an RB from the first round to the outhouse in a few games, and similarly the Earnest Grahams of the world can pop out of nowhere to make your fantasy season. The point here is if you go light on rushers in the first three rounds, make sure you go heavy on them in Rounds 4 through 7.

If you already have two backs, your Round 4 options are more open. The position that loses stars fastest after RB is WR, which is why you'll often see me go RB-RB-WR-WR to begin a draft. The top quarterbacks score like rushers, but the rest are pretty much the same. So if I've missed out on Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, I don't particularly care who I have under center and would rather lock in studs at wideout and even at my flex. I've done about 15 mock drafts already this summer, and I don't think I've wound up with Tony Romo or Drew Brees in any of them, not because I don't think those guys will have good years but because the difference between them and, say, Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Hasselbeck, Derek Anderson or Jay Cutler isn't likely to be enormous, whereas the difference between Torry Holt and Roddy White is significant. In a 10-team fantasy football draft, you need only concern yourself with the top 10 quarterbacks anyway (unless you're in a two-QB league), and once you get past the top two QBs, I frankly don't care that much about the remaining top 10. So wait and pick off more RBs and WRs. Heck, in a league this shallow, you have the flexibility to grab sliders at any position, including more RBs. I love vexing the crowd by hoarding backs in these rounds. That's what in-season trades are for.

If your top back is Adrian Peterson, you need to own Chester Taylor, and you need to draft him before our player rankings tell you to. So in Round 8, start thinking handcuff, and even earlier if your first-rounder is an injury risk. This range is also where I grab a tight end if I haven't taken Antonio Gates -- or this year maybe Jason Witten -- sometime around the fifth round. As with the non-elite quarterbacks, non-elite tight ends are interchangeable, at least from a preseason perspective. Can I, without compunction, guarantee you that Tony Gonzalez is going to have a better fantasy season than Heath Miller? No, I cannot, which is why I don't mind waiting until Round 10 to take Miller, as opposed to taking Gonzo a few rounds earlier.

So if you're waiting to grab your starting tight end (and definitely waiting to take your starting defense or kicker), what should you be doing instead? I start shoveling in sleeper prospects in these middle rounds. If I've scouted and fallen in love with a rookie runner's potential, I'd rather grab him early than lose him. For instance, give me Chris Johnson over Kenny Watson, even though our rankings have Watson a little higher. Sure, chances are I'll get more from Watson, but I'll pay a premium for Johnson's speed and upside in the 11th round of a 10-team draft. I'm also quasi-convinced that rookie rusher Ryan Torain will, by hook or by crook, find his way into the Denver backfield, so I'll give him a shot, too, maybe as early as Round 12. It doesn't matter if you've already filled your starting running back slots, or your starting wide receiver slots. You want players with upside. Think of them as lottery tickets, and you want as many as possible to increase the chance you'll win the jackpot. It's the same principle, but in this case, the jackpot's name might be Marques Colston (from two years ago) or Ryan Grant (from last season).

To take a team defense before Round 13 is defensible for exactly one reason, and no, your immense love for your favorite team and wanting to root for their defense is not the reason. Instead, if you are convinced that the defense you have in mind is head-and-shoulders better than the rest, I can see grabbing it in, say, the 10th or 11th round. This year, the only defenses I could I see doing that with would be the San Diego Chargers, the New England Patriots and the Minnesota Vikings. Yes, I'd put the Vikings in there, too, because of their stud defensive tackles and because Jared Allen brings his frenetic sack act Minneapolis. For the most part, though, history has taught us that just when we're sure of what'll happen with team defenses in fantasy leagues, everything we know turns out to be not only wrong but bald-faced stupid.

Frankly, I think you're better off letting anyone who wants to jump early on a defense go ahead and do so, while you continue to pick off interesting players with upside. Take Limas Sweed of the Steelers, Bryant Johnson of the 49ers or Chris Brown of the Texans, none of whom is likely to be a fantasy star this year, but each of whom has a chance to be. It's just so difficult from year to year to predict what a team defense will do fantasy-wise. After all, the consensus top defense before the '07 season was the Baltimore Ravens, and they finished 23rd in fantasy points. I'd rather stay disciplined and be satisfied taking what looks like a solid enough defense in Round 13 or 14.

As for your kicker, well, that's the only position that offers the worst of all possible worlds: It's random and normalized, so not only do you not know who'll be good from year to year (let alone week to week), but the difference between the best and, say, the 10th-best kicker is likely to be minimal. That, friends, is a formula for not giving a hoot whom you have at kicker, which means you should never take your kicker before Round 15, and frankly, you're better off just taking him in Round 16 (or your league's final round).

Christopher Harris is a fantasy baseball, football and racing analyst for ESPN.com. He is a six-time Fantasy Sports Writing Association award winner across all three of those sports. You can e-mail him here.