Fantasy football is consistently growing and changing. Not only have we gone from non-PPR and 1QB leagues to tiered PPR and superflex scoring, but the fantasy football world has also changed how it does the waiver wire process.
Several fantasy football leagues started with a weekly reverse order of the standings to determine the waiver wire order. Unfortunately, this punished teams with a winning record, often keeping them from landing the top players off the waiver wire. Meanwhile, rolling waivers is a better option. This style of waivers will rotate teams in order after they make a waiver wire addition. However, neither is the ideal way to run waivers for fantasy football leagues.
The best waiver wire process is FAAB – free agent acquisition budget or free agent auction bidding. This way of running waivers gives every team an equal opportunity to add the big-name player every week, regardless of record.
Let’s dive into how FAAB works and everything fantasy players need to know about it.
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FAAB Waiver Wire: Fantasy Football Strategy
How Does FAAB Work?
Most fantasy football leagues that use FAAB waivers have a $100 budget of fake cash for the year. However, most fantasy platforms will allow you to change the amount up to $1,000 for the season. The dollar amount is relative and doesn’t matter. What does matter is how the waiver wire process works.
Waivers typically open for at least 24 hours following each week’s set of games or when a player is dropped from a roster to the waiver wire. Teams have that window of time to blindly bid on players. When the bidding window closes, the team with the highest blind bid will be awarded the player.
Some leagues will run waivers daily and never have a first-come, first-served waiver wire or street free agent addition process. However, most fantasy leagues will have all available players as free agents once they clear the FAAB blind bidding window, making them a first-come, first-served type roster addition.
Many leagues will allow teams to make a $0 bid for players, which means you can add them to your team for free, assuming no one else bids a dollar or more for the player. However, some leagues have a $1 minimum bid, which doesn’t seem like a big deal. Yet, a handful of those moves throughout the year could be the difference between landing a big-fish target or missing out on a potential league-winning candidate later in the season.
When Should You Spend Your FAAB?
Managing your FAAB is critical. Once you spend your entire budget, your team can no longer add players during the blind bidding window for anything more than $0. Therefore, knowing when to spend your FAAB and how aggressively is critical to building a championship-caliber fantasy football roster.
The way to be effective with your FAAB budget is to balance the upside of adding a player against the dollar cost and how it impacts your chances of adding impact players later in the season. While it seems obvious that spending money now means you won’t have it later, you reduce your chances of adding a potential league winner later in the season by making a significant bid early in the year.
However, fantasy players should be aggressive with their budget early in the season and heading into the fantasy playoffs. The big-ticket waiver wire targets early in the year are typically the best options for the season. Furthermore, they can help your team for most of the year, while the player added in Week 13 only helps for a few weeks.
Two years ago was a perfect example of why fantasy players should be aggressive with their FAAB budget early in the season. Puka Nacua and Kyren Williams were hot waiver wire targets after Week 1. Fantasy players could have spent their entire budget on either player and come away happy. Yet, many were skeptical about the players and didn’t want to blow a significant chunk of their budget with only one week in the books.
While Nacua and Williams were once-in-a-blue-moon type waiver wire additions, the logic still applies – don’t be shy about spending 30-40% of your budget on a guy you really like early in the year. Furthermore, your FAAB is like a new car; it depreciates in value as the season progresses.
Yet, sometimes fantasy players will get burned by spending a significant chunk of their FAAB on the hot Week 1 waiver wire target. Last year, Isaiah Likely had an outstanding opening performance, totaling nine receptions on 12 targets for 111 receiving yards, a touchdown, and 26.1 PPR fantasy points. However, he was the TE28 for the rest of the season, averaging 6.5 fantasy points per game, burning fantasy players who spent an immense part of their FAAB on the tight end.
Some fantasy players will want to be frugal with their FAAB budget and only spend so much each week for fear that they will run out at the end of the year. While you ideally don’t want to be without any budget late in the season, the value of your money declines because there aren’t as many appealing waiver wire targets once Thanksgiving rolls around.
Spend Your FAAB Wisely
Fantasy players shouldn’t spend their FAAB budget on streaming positions. Leagues that still have a D/ST or kicker spot in the starting lineup are fine. However, fantasy players shouldn’t use even $1 of their $100 budget on a D/ST or kicker for the week. Add those players off the waiver wire as free agents or for $0 bids only. The money you save is more valuable to your team than the streaming D/ST or kicker.
Similarly, fantasy players don’t want to spend their FAAB on bye-week replacements, especially at the tight end and quarterback positions. The tight end or quarterback you will use for one week isn’t worth spending your budget on. Instead, add them for $0 or wait until they are free agents.
However, quarterbacks and tight ends that you plan to hold onto for several weeks as a high-upside addition or an injury replacement are a different story. You want to pay up for that player similarly to how you would for a running back or wide receiver.
The bottom line is, unless you plan on holding onto the player for multiple weeks as a rest-of-season addition, don’t spend your FAAB on one-week replacement options. The dollar fantasy players spend on that addition is more valuable than the player himself.
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Mike Fanelli is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @Mike_NFL2.
