FAAB after Week 1: sizing waiver bids from real add rates

A count of adds is a count of competitors

Sleeper publishes how many times each player was added across its leagues over any recent window. On Tuesday morning, September 15, at 7:10 AM ET, Devaughn Vele had 1,296,785 adds in the last 24 hours. That number feels like a verdict. It is not one. It is the best public proxy for how many managers want him, which is the crowd you are bidding against. It says nothing about whether he is worth the money.

Our Week 2 waiver guide priced Monday's list by usage. This guide is about the other half of a bid: reading the add feed itself, so you know when a bid has to be sharp and when a dollar wins. Two caveats first. Sleeper's feed does not say how many leagues already roster a player, so a small count can mean he is already gone. And the feed returns only the top 50 names in each window, so a player missing from the drop list was dropped less often than the 50th name, not never.

Three readings of one feed

Speed. Pull the same player over 24 hours and over 48 hours and divide. The share that landed in the last day tells you whether the crowd is still arriving or already done. Devin Singletary took 83 percent of his 48 hour adds in the last 24. Michael Mayer took 12 percent. One is a rush in progress. The other is last week's rush, finished.

Net. Compare adds with drops over the same window. Mayer had 46,935 adds in the last 24 hours and 110,214 drops. He has the most adds of anyone over seven days, 2,843,829, and he is now leaving more rosters than he joins. A player with negative net is being released faster than he is claimed, and a released player who clears waivers costs nothing.

Work. Set the count beside the Week 1 usage behind it. A big count on a small role is a crowded bid for a small asset. A small count on a big role is the claim that clears cheap.

Tuesday's list, read three ways

Source: Sleeper trending adds and drops, Week 1 stats and Week 2 PPR projections, pulled Sep 15 2026, 7:10 AM ET.

What the table says about sizing

Matthew Golden is the quiet room. He drew 12 of Green Bay's 40 targets, 30 percent, the highest share in the table, and played 56 of 68 snaps. Sleeper projects him for 11.05 in Week 2. Singletary drew 4 targets on 25 of 69 snaps and carries a 3.38 projection, and he was added more than eight times as often. Our Week 2 waiver page lists Golden at an ADP rank of 104 with a 1 percent bid. With that little competition, you do not need to outbid anyone. Bid the low end of the rung his role earns and let the crowd spend on Singletary.

Singletary is the crowded bid you skip. Eighty three percent of his adds came in one day, on a Week 1 line with a touchdown in it. That is a crowd acting on one game, and the managers who have not acted yet read the same box score. If you want him, you pay a crowd price for a player Sleeper projects under 4 points. Pass.

Caleb Douglas is the crowded bid you make. He is crowded too, 78 percent of his adds in the last day, but his 26 percent target share is real work. When a claim is both contested and deserved, the bid has to beat people, so bid the top of the rung and never on a round number. Ties on Sleeper go to waiver priority.

Jalen Coker is the discount with a question mark. The best Week 1 line on the list drew only 81,342 adds in a day. Sleeper's player file lists him as Questionable, and that designation is the risk a bid has to price. We cannot tell from the feed whether it is also why the crowd is thin. Read the team's injury report before you set the number.

Mayer is the bid you do not need. Negative net over the last day. If he clears waivers in your league, he is a free agent Wednesday morning for nothing.

How much the crowd should move your number

Less than it feels like. The Parlae FAAB model multiplies a bid by 1.08 when a player clears 1,000 adds in 24 hours and by 1.15 at 5,000. The 50th name on Tuesday's 24 hour list had 14,720 adds, so every player in the table already gets the maximum. In Week 2 the add count cannot separate these players inside the model, and the model caps the crowd's effect at 15 percent. A crowd changes what it takes to win a claim. It does not change what a claim is worth.

So use the count for the part it is good at. Crowded plus real work: bid the top of the rung. Crowded plus thin work: skip. Quiet plus real work: bid the bottom of the rung. Negative net: wait for free agency.

The clock after claims run

On Sleeper, waivers from the weekend clear on Tue After Day, 12:05 AM PT Wednesday, which is 3:05 AM ET. In leagues with After Games Waivers Clear turned on, free agency runs from Wednesday morning until each player's game begins. That turns the unclaimed names into a race, not an auction.

Week 2 opens Thursday night with Detroit at Buffalo, 8:15 PM ET. In leagues using After Games Waivers Clear, any Lions or Bills free agent is locked once that game begins and stays on waivers until the following Wednesday. Sione Vaki of Detroit showed 10,346 adds on our Week 2 waiver page at 7:07 AM ET Tuesday. If he is your add, make it before Thursday kickoff. Our guide to the hour before kickoff covers the lock itself.

What to do with this

1. For every claim you are weighing, pull the 24 and 48 hour add counts and the 24 hour drops. Mark each one crowded or quiet, and rising or finished.
2. Bid the top of the rung only when a claim is crowded and the Week 1 target share or snap share supports it. Put a dollar or nothing on crowded names with thin work, and the rung's low end on quiet names with real work, like Golden.
3. Check the Week 2 waiver wire Wednesday morning after claims clear, and pick up any Lions or Bills free agent before 8:15 PM ET Thursday.