Waiver wire key to success

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, your willingness to work the waiver wire on a daily basis is your No. 1 key to success. I wouldn’t have won a championship last year without working the waiver wire.

I told you on Tuesday I had three waiver claims in that day, and I just put in two more this morning. At the risk of my opponents reading this, I will tell you that Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch were the two.

I didn’t get the players I claimed on Tuesday – Adrian Peterson and Matt Ryan. They were claimed by other GMs. If more than one claim is made on a player, claims are awarded to the team at the head of the line.

That’s the disadvantage of always working the waiver wire. You’re never at the head of the line, so you frequently miss out on a prominent player that are dropped. I didn’t get Peterson, or Ryan, or Allen Robinson last week.

Your order in line for waiver claims is always based on who picked last. Once a team is awarded a claim, they move to the last possible position to claim and others move up a slot. I am frequently at the end of the line.

That doesn’t mean you don’t try. Good players can sit on the waiver wire for a week, or two, unnoticed. It depends on how competitive your league is. My league has a lot of sharp GMs who check the wire, so it’s never easy.