Fantasy Football League Rules

When I first started playing fantasy football I paid no attention at all to waiver wire rules.  My friends invited me into a free for all waiver wire league on Yahoo and I cut my teeth picking up players at will.  Whoever was watching the games or watching the news when a player injury report was released was the lucky dog who got the backup.  I woke up early back then to go to class and would often be one of the first person’s to see the news so sometimes it worked to my advantage, but usually whoever woke up the earliest had a significant edge on the league.  That’s just no way to run a competitive league.  I do not wake up “early” by any means these days, so it’s pretty dumb for me to play in a league like this (even though I still do out of tradition).  So I’ve sought out all the different waiver wire forms in an effort to find the one that most evens the playing field.  I’ve found a couple of good options that I will discuss here.

Blind Bidding
Blind bidding is, in my opinion, both the most fair and the most skillful way to run a waiver wire in a competitive fantasy football league.  I’m not the only one who thinks this - blind bidding was adopted by the most prominent of high stakes fantasy football games, the World Championship of Fantasy Football (WCOFF).  In a blind bidding system, each player is allotted a certain number of Waiver Wire Dollars that can be used to bid on players throughout the season.  Everyone enters their bids for players in the order they want the bids submitted.  Players cannot see what other players have bid, so it’s “Blind” bidding.  It’s fair because everyone is on the same playing field - there is no waiver priority and all of the bids are submitted at the exact same time.  It’s skillful because a player must smartly manage his points to improve his team.  In fact, it’s incredibly skillful.

In the WCOFF you’re allotted $1000.  When Tom Brady went down on week 1 last year the WCOFF message boards exploded with debate on how much to bid for Matt Cassel.  In my league he went for $300.  In one league he went for $950!!  This player had so much faith in Cassel’s upside that he crippled himself on the WW for the rest of the season.  I personally used about half of my points acquiring Defenses and TE’s for matchup plays.  I made a couple of big moves on sleeper wide receivers, but overall I think I played it poorly.  I should have made bigger plays at the emerging names.  If you think someone is going to be a strong weekly contributer on your team, then that player is immensely valuable.  Don’t be afraid to pay $300-500 for that kind of talent.  I was regularly surprised at how much players went for, but in the end I missed out on all the good ones.  This year I am bidding up.

Waiver Wire Periods
While blind bidding is the most fair and skillful, it unfortunately has not been adapted as a league option on the major fantasy sport sites (Yahoo and ESPN). Waiver Wire Period options are available to level the playing field on these sites. This system is based on Waiver Priority. Initial Waiver Priority is usually set in reverse order of draft order. After that it resets according to Waiver Claims filled - anyone who claimed someone moves to the bottom of the Waiver Priority list. Some leagues reset Waiver Priority based on standings - the last place team always gets first waiver priority. Usually the first Waiver Wire Period ends on Thursday afternoon. So, Monday Tuesday, and Wednesday can be spent setting the order in which you want to acquire players. Then, on Thursday, those players are awarded to teams based on waiver priority. It doesn’t matter if you wake up at 6AM and start watching SportsCenter because everyone’s claims go through at the exact same time. It can be more frustrating than a Free Agent Free for All, but it’s the only way to run a competitive league on one of the big sites.

I hope this helps makes some Waiver Wire Rules decisions. Please leave comments if you have any other good suggestions for Waiver Wire rules.