Viva Murillo!
The great thing about the waiver wire is you have a chance to undo draft-day mistakes and pick up players that have emerged as start-worthy talent. The terrible thing about the waiver wire is you have a chance to undo what you think are draft-day mistakes and pick up players that looked like start-worthy talent last week.
I did it myself in one league last week. Sammy Morris was available and I was happy to not only make room for him but bench my injured backfield options (McGahee and Grant) so he could start. In my head I saw multiple touchdowns.
I saw them, too-- from Ronnie Brown. Meanwhile, Morris couldn't quite crack 30 yards. But who can I blame but myself? The circumstances looked good and I liked the idea of picking up a difference-maker off the waiver wire. Well, he'll make a difference by contributing an "L" to my record. But he'll also remind me that expectations should be tempered when throwing in a guy that nobody saw fit to draft or pick up before I did.
I'm not the only one, of course. Owners who started Eddie Royal got 11 receiving yards (plus six on the ground) in week 3 for their troubles. And I won't get into those owners who picked up Matt Cassel last week. If you put a guy in your lineup whose last start was in high school...I guess you reap what you sow.
The problem is, for struggling fantasy owners those disappointments appear to be a continuation of a bad luck streak to start the season. After all, you wouldn't start a waiver wire pickup unless you had injuries or very unproductive starters on your roster. So what happens? You try to recover and those guys do nothing for you. It's like Lady Luck should be flagged for unnecessary roughness on your fantasy team.
But in reality, that's not the case at all. You might have had your share of misfortune in the first couple of weeks, but starting a risky or unproven talent is a bad judgment call, not bad luck. It would be like making a hasty trade and lamenting the poor results from doing so (more on that next week). What happens to your players is out of your hands. What you do in response to that is totally your decision. Don't make a rough start worse by putting your fate in the hands of a waiver wire wonder. It's okay to wait and see what you have in a player before depending on him. There are still a lot of games left.
Sometimes the frustration makes me not want to bother with the waiver wire. But there are reasons why I'll keep going back, of course. J.T. O'Sullivan is one of them. He was available in more than a few leagues at the beginning of the season, and it looks like he provides good depth (and maybe a viable starter) at an important position. There are other guys like that out there, and we're all trying to find them. I just think that, from now on, I'll be a little more patient with my existing roster and skeptical about my new additions. I'll probably be dropping Morris, too. Good luck to whoever picks him up.
Youtube Clip of the Week: Not to add insult to injury, but this is the guy who started for New England last week. If you had seen this, would you have picked him up off the waiver wire? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrROLWbtTzY
You can reach Michael Murillo at vivamurillo@gmail.com.
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