Fantasy Football Season - Waivers and Trades

In Fantasy Football, as with any fantasy sport, your Draft is only the beginning. Yes, to many it is the best part of the season, but it is still only the beginning. A good draft should give you a head start to a winning season, however there is more to do.

Once the Fantasy Football season is under way, you might find there are a couple of players who are vastly under-achieving. Maybe some players get injured or benched. It is rare that you can draft a team and just leave it and still win. There are two very important things ever good owner must do now....

1) Keep your eye on the Waivers. Remember, usually in fantasy football, all of the players move from free agency to waivers for a couple days after each week of football draws to an end. Every year there will be several players on my team at the end of the season that I picked up from waivers as the season went on. Especially keep a close eye in the early weeks. Often you will find players who are playing a lot more than any of the experts expected them to. More often than not, this will happen in the Receivers position and the Tight End position. Almost every season I will pick up my kicker and defense from waivers since they are the most unpredictable positions. See 'Fantasy Football Draft' article for more information on why you should wait to select your kicker from waivers rather than wasting an early pick on one.

2) Trade. .... First let me make it clear. I would not advise anyone to trade a star who is under-achieving away within the first 4 weeks. In one league I have Tomlinson as a keeper. If he starts the season off with a couple bad weeks, I am not looking to trade him. Especially for an unproven rookie who had a couple of decent weeks. Tomlinson has proven year in and year out that he will end up with top numbers. Keep faith. With that in mind, you should always be keeping your eye out for a good trade possibility. Especially if you have an excess of talent in one position. It is always a good idea to trade 2 or 3 good players from your bench for a top player you will start. Just keep in mind there is always the injury bug that can go around and bye weeks to deal with. So make sure you have enough back-ups that you can keep a full starting roster each week.

Trading can be far more important to winning than you might imagine. I have a brother who won our league the first three season in a row. He has won more ESPN Fantasy Football Championships than anyone I have ever seen. Not because he drafts so great, but because he knows how to trade. I have seen him walk away with trades that I could not believe anyone would make. I have seen players make counter offers to him that gave him a better trade than he originally offered. The reason for this is that he stays in contact with other owners and treats them with respect. Often he will converse with owners using chat and work out trades that way. What he does not do however, is insult their intelligence by offering crappy or average players for stars.

Through Waivers and Trades, you can take a last place team and win if you use intelligence. If you lose the first two or three weeks, don't give up. Just work harder to fix your team.