Fantasy Football: Waiver wire pickups can be as good as top draft picks

Published 9:17 pm Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Always be working.

ABW.

The 2013 fantasy football season could be a poster to support that way of thinking. Just drafting your football team is not enough to achieve success in fantasy football. You must Always Be Working your waiver wire and trading block. But most important is the waiver wire.

Don’t believe me?

Well, on this final week of the fantasy regular season for many leagues, I decided to try something a little daring — and I believe it may work.

Using the 14-team league I play in, which features a cash prize for the winner, so only serious owners need apply, I am going to attempt to construct a starting lineup made entirely of players who were not drafted at all against a team drafted in the first round.

So basically, just think if you had picks 1-6 of your draft at the start of this year against a team comprised of the top 1-6 that were not drafted.

I think the final numbers may surprise.

I will base the scoring on their total number of points averaged by number of games they were starters. Many times undrafted players emerge after a couple weeks, so this will give us a fairer representation. (Ellington is averaged by games played because he’s only been listed as starter once.)

The point totals are based on this particular league’s scoring system, which awards six points for passing, rushing and receiving touchdowns, is a point-per-two reception league that also awards a point for 10 yards receiving or rushing and 25 yards passing. More than 100 yards receives an additional five points.

I am using our league’s first six position players taken in the 2013 draft.

So, now that we have established the ground rules, let’s play.

Team A

QB Drew Brees — 379 points, 34.4 average

RB Adrian Peterson — 211 points, 19.1

RB Arian Foster — 101 points, 14.4

WR Calvin Johnson — 285 points, 28.5

WR Brandon Marshall — 204 points, 18.5

TE Jimmy Graham — 231 points, 21

Total per week: 135.9

Team B

QB Nick Foles — 200 points, 40

RB Rashad Jennings — 116 points, 29

RB Andre Ellington — 106 points, 9.6

WR Harry Douglas — 134 points, 19.1

WR Riley Cooper — 131 points, 11.9

TE Julius Thomas — 149 points, 14.9

Total per week: 124.5

Yes, Team A still wins, but I bet it’s a lot closer than you thought. Remember, none of the players on Team B were drafted at all in a 14-team league with 15 rounds.

The moral if this is ABW. Fantasy football champions prescribe to this while teams that stay pat usually are not playing after weeks 11-12.

Last Action Heroes Update: Oh, it was a bad time for my Heroes to post one of the worst scores of the season. It’s my fault for believing in the New York Giants and Houston Texans offenses. I traded for players on both teams looking at their late November and early December schedules.

It backfired big time.

Despite the Texans and Giants facing two of the worst defenses in the league, Dallas and Jacksonville, Case Keenum did nothing for the Texans, which in turn stopped any chance of my guys Andre Johnson and Ben Tate doing anything.

Throw in a lackluster effort by Victor Cruz and so-so from Eli Manning, Tampa Bay running back Bobby Rainey coming back down to earth and my No. 1 running back Marshawn Lynch on a bye and you get a good old-fashioned whooping, which is what Kool & the Gang gave me, 114-53.

That drops the Heroes to 6-6 and means it is must-win time in my regular-season finale against the Crushers.

At least all of the byes are done and maybe the Texans come to their senses and put Matt Schaub back in under center.

 Advice: Enjoy Thanksgiving and the three football games we get to feast on. As for moves, there are no more byes so play your best players regardless of matchups.

Good luck!