What are rolling waivers in fantasy football? All you need to know

As soon as a fantasy football draft is completed, all remaining players not on a roster are often immediately placed on waivers. This gives all teams an equal chance of acquiring free agents and eliminates certain managers from being vultures.

The waiver wire process works similarly to a draft each week of the regular season, especially in leagues that use a rolling format.

Rolling waivers is the most popular way for fantasy football leagues to handle their pool of free agents fairly. Players are distributed per request and in a determined order of teams.

Whichever team had the last pick of the original fantasy draft will have first priority on waivers. The waiver priority order is directly the reverse order of how the teams were selected on draft day.

What makes the process a rolling list is that when a player is claimed, the team that selected him will move to the bottom of the priority order, bumping the rest of the teams initially behind them up one slot. Teams that choose not to claim a waiver in any given week will hold their slot in the order until they eventually make a pick.

This rolling format eliminates any advantage of attempting to vulture the waiver wire. Instead, it aims to allow all teams as fair a chance as possible to add valuable free agents during the season.

While the draft is the most important event of every fantasy football season, the waiver wire provides the best opportunity to build a stronger roster while the season plays itself out.

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When do waiver claims process in fantasy football?

The 2023 NFL Draft logo

Following the initial waiver period after fantasy football drafts, traditional free agency remains open until NFL Week 1 officially starts. Free-agent players can simply be added by whoever gets to them first. Once the games begin, all remaining free agents are placed on waivers and must be claimed and processed before being added to a roster.

Fantasy football managers usually have until Tuesday or Wednesday to make all their waiver claims and rank them by their priority order. Based on the waiver rolling order and decided by which players have a claim request by each team, as well as their priority ranking, will determine where each free agent lands.

The waivers are distributed in an automatic draft process before returning the unclaimed players back to traditional free agency. This same claiming process repeats every week of the fantasy season.