Fantasy football managers, it’s time to buckle up. The 2024 NFL season is officially here. So is the fantasy football season.
There have been plenty of impressive and not-so-impressive performances so far, both of them which have affected your fantasy football team. There have also been injuries which have affected the strategies and gameplans for many fantasy football managers.
For example, San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, who was the 2023 Offensive Player of the Year and the No. 1 fantasy pick in many fantasy drafts, has been injured and has been placed on injury reserve (IR).
The same situation with Los Angeles Rams' star wide receiver Puka Nacua, who suffered an injury in Week 1 clash against the Detroit Lions, who has been placed on IR. He will miss at least four games.
Another wide receiver's injury which affected a lot of fantasy mangers is Marquise "Hollywood" Brown.
In such cases, the overall balance of the fantasy squad is affected. The managers would sometimes want to replace the injured player or the player who's performing poorly in exchange for someone better.
This is where waiver wire comes in very handy and helpful throughout your fantasy football season. It’s time to make the most out of the waivers.
If you’re a newbie to fantasy football and you’re wondering what a waiver means and how to use waiver to fix your roster, you’ve come to the right place. This page will give you a complete ins and outs of waivers in fantasy football.
Making changes to your roster every single week takes a lot of research. Time is your most valuable asset. Use Sportskeeda’s Start/Sit Optimizer for making the best roster moves and stacking your fantasy roster every week.
What is a waiver wire in fantasy football?
In the most simple words, waiver wire helps you to pick up players who are free agents, undrafted and have been cut from other teams in the league.
Why does this matter?
Football is one of the most unpredictable sports. Every single week in the NFL has its share of uncertainty. From injuries to poor performances to roster cuts, there’s a lot of stuff that happens in the NFL.
The most recent example was that of Aaron Rodgers. Who would’ve thought after everything that the New York Jets and Aaron Rodgers went through in the offseason that their hopes would crash within four minutes of the season opener against Bills?
Cases like this are where waiver wire comes in extremely handy because it can be the turning point in your fantasy football season.
Waiver wire is a feature that helps the fantasy football managers to pick up players from the pool of players who went undrafted, who were cut from the team and who were dropped because of poor performances, in your league.
Fantasy football managers make mistakes in their drafts. They are humans as well. Waiver wire gives them a chance to rectify that. Since there are a lot of transactions that happen throughout the fantasy football season, the team in which a player starts might not be the team they finish the season with.
So how do fantasy football managers use waiver wire? Let's get into it.
With the 2024 fantasy football season on the horizon, be sure to check out our free Fantasy Football Trade Analyzer to lock down your squad for the year.
Waiver order: How does it work in Fantasy Football?
We mentioned that the NFL season is unpredictable. After every week in the NFL, depending on the player’s performance, injury and also the next week matchups, the fantasy football managers shuffle their roster.
This is done to ensure that they build a high points scoring fantasy football roster. So every week after the games, the managers release some players who enter the waiver wire. As the player enters the waiver wire, the other managers in the league can now go after that player to add them to their roster.
But the question now remains, who gets to pick the player? This is where the waiver order comes into play.
Waiver order determines which manager and team will get the player in proclivity. There is a priority rank for the managers. The manager with the highest priority gets their waiver order processed first. And vice-versa. This waiver order is based upon the fantasy football draft order at the beginning of the season.
What this means is that the manager who had the last pick in the fantasy draft will get to pick the player first in waivers. Similarly, the following week, when managers compete for the desired player in the waivers, the manager who picked first in the previous week’s waiver will get to choose the last.
FAQs
A. Waiver wire is where fantasy managers have the opportunity to claim players who were undrafted, cut by teams from the fantasy league.
A. A waiver order is based on the fantasy draft. The manager with the first pick in the draft will have to pick the last in waiver. And this order continues inversely.
A. Generally, most waiver requests take 24 hours to process and are cleared by 3 am to 5am ET before the game-week deadline.
A. FAAB is also known as free agent acquisition budget where managers bid for player on the waiver using their budget rather than priority rank.
A. A waiver wire claim in fantasy football is when fantasy team owners claim an undrafted player. Just like real football, these players are free agents who are not on another team.
