What is a Waiver in Fantasy Football?

Fantasy football managers, it’s time to buckle up. The 2023 NFL season has officially begun. The fantasy football season has also begun.

After week 1, there have been plenty of impressive and not-so-impressive performances, both of them which have affected your fantasy football team.

From Aaron Rodgers to J. K. Dobbins, the injury plague hit the football field. This has affected the strategies and gameplans for many fantasy football managers.

This is where waiver wire comes in very handy and helpful, not just after Week 1 but 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.

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.

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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.