Week 3 waivers, 2026. The run after Week 2's games. What players cost off waivers across the member leagues whose results we have, and how close our recommended bids came. Updated every Wednesday after waivers process.
Every week we have published · the historical market
Overall: D (16.3 points missed)
Key players: C (11.1 points missed)
Last week: Overall F (25.1 points missed); no key-player letter.
Each of our three bids makes a promise: P60 should win 60% of the players somebody else also bids on, P75 75%, P90 90%. Winning up to 5 points more than the promise counts as on target, because we would rather overpay than lose the player. Below the promise, every point counts. Above that band, only the extra counts.
Overall checks each promise separately for our low, middle and high bids, across every contested claim our board priced. A claim counts as contested when the winner paid at least $1 and another team also bid at least $1: a $0 bid never competes, because $1 beats it. This week grades the league price ladder, what the board led with that week.
Key players are the players our leagues bid on hardest this week: 3 or more managers bidding in at least 15% of our leagues, at a median winning bid of 15% of budget or more (quarterbacks counted only in superflex and two-QB leagues). Each player is graded separately: how often our P60 bid would have won that player, against the same 60% to 65% target. Every player counts the same.
| Player | P60 won | Contested claims | Points missed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jonah Coleman RB | 48% | 88 | 12.3 |
| Marcus Mariota QB | 50% | 32 | 10.0 |
Listed, not scored (fewer than 20 contested claims we could score): Jameis Winston (2).
Grading scale, in points missed: A under 5, B under 10, C under 15, D under 25, F at 25 or more. Overall is measured on 969 contested claims (re-graded Oct 23 under our current rule, the one every week now uses; before that this page read D, 14.4 points missed on 1,139 claims). How we grade, and every change to it.
Ranked by how many leagues saw two or more managers bid on the same player. That is a different list from the most-claimed players: half of week-one bids are for nothing, and a free add is not a contested claim. Team defenses are left out here; they are in the full table below.
Emanuel Wilson RB
Wanted in 280 leagues. 160 of those turned into a real auction with two or more managers bidding. The winner paid 10.0% of budget, and had to go 6.0% past the next-best offer. Half the winning bids landed between 5.0% and 16.1%, so the market did not agree. 6% of the leagues that won paid nothing at all.
Bar: how often the bid won. White tick: what it promised.
Adonai Mitchell WR
Wanted in 225 leagues. 144 of those turned into a real auction with two or more managers bidding. The winner paid 10.0% of budget, and had to go 3.0% past the next-best offer. Half the winning bids landed between 5.0% and 16.0%, so the market did not agree. 9% of the leagues that won paid nothing at all.
Bar: how often the bid won. White tick: what it promised.
Bryce Young QB
Wanted in 180 leagues. 126 of those turned into a real auction with two or more managers bidding. The winner paid 11.0% of budget, and had to go 6.0% past the next-best offer. Half the winning bids landed between 5.0% and 20.0%, so the market did not agree. 11% of the leagues that won paid nothing at all.
Bar: how often the bid won. White tick: what it promised.
Jonah Coleman RB
Wanted in 135 leagues. 107 of those turned into a real auction with two or more managers bidding. The winner paid 15.8% of budget, and had to go 6.0% past the next-best offer. Half the winning bids landed between 8.0% and 28.9%, so the market did not agree. 5% of the leagues that won paid nothing at all.
Bar: how often the bid won. White tick: what it promised.
Tyler Shough QB
Wanted in 122 leagues. 91 of those turned into a real auction with two or more managers bidding. The winner paid 11.0% of budget, and had to go 4.0% past the next-best offer. Half the winning bids landed between 5.0% and 20.0%, so the market did not agree. 6% of the leagues that won paid nothing at all.
Bar: how often the bid won. White tick: what it promised.
Before you bid, the board gives you a price at each of three rungs. P60 is built to win 60% of the players somebody else is also bidding on; P75 and P90 are the same idea at higher confidence.
Only claims where two or more managers bid. A bid counts as a win when it would have beaten the manager who actually won, by a dollar.
Our P60 bid ran between 14% and 16% of budget across these rows. What players actually took to win ran from 3% to 29%. This table groups players by what they ended up costing, which nobody knows until waivers run. A player lands in the top row because someone bid big, so no bid made in advance wins most of those. It shows where the money went, not whether our number was right. Grouped by what our P60 said instead, it won 25% when it said under 8% of budget and 77% when it said 22% or more, against a 60% promise.
When our P60 did win a contested claim, it overpaid a median 6.6% of budget over what it took. Our target is a max of 5%: a small overpay beats losing the player, but it should not be more than that.
| What it took to win | Claims | What our P60 bid | How often P60 would have won |
|---|---|---|---|
| under 5% of budget | 90 | 15% | 99% |
| 5% to 10% of budget | 217 | 14% | 91% |
| 10% to 20% of budget | 356 | 14% | 55% |
| 20% or more of budget | 306 | 16% | 11% |
Every card leads with one number: the minimum bid when we expect nobody else to bid, or P60 when we expect other managers to bid. This is how often that call was right. It is not part of the grade yet.
| What happened | Card led with P60 | Card led with the minimum | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Someone else bid too966 claims | 62%right: led with P60 | 38%wrong: led with the minimum and lost | ||
| Nobody else bid1,354 claims | 47%wrong: overpaid a median 15% | 53%right: the minimum won it |
| Promise | How often it woncontested claims | What we saidshare of budget | What it tookshare of budget | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P60969 claims | 60%promised | 53%-7% vs the promise | 15.0%what we said | 14.0%1.0% high |
| P75969 claims | 75%promised | 75%-0% vs the promise | 23.0%what we said | 14.0%9.0% high |
| P9063 claims | 90%promised | 92%+2% vs the promise | 35.0%what we said | 12.0%23.0% high |
P90 was shown on far fewer players than P60, so it has fewer claims to score. Grey cells are too thin to count toward the grade.
Our grade this week is a D. On average our P60 bid did what it promises: it would have won about 60% of the players two or more managers wanted. The problem is at the two ends.
Here is the plain version. Our P60 bid was about the same for almost every player, around 15% of budget. What players actually took to win ran from 2% to 29%. So we overpaid for players nobody fought hard over, and we lost most of the ones everybody wanted.
The reason is in how the bid is built. It starts from what your league has paid at that position before. That history is real, but it describes the position, not the player in front of you this week.
What does predict a player's price is the crowd. With one other bidder, it took a median 9% of budget to win. With two, 12%. With three, 16%. With four or more, about 21%. And the things that bring a crowd are the things you would expect. Players rostered in 90% or more of leagues across the country drew three or more bidders 79% of the time, and the winner paid a median 18.5%.
Quarterbacks drew a crowd this week. 44% of quarterback claims had two or more bidders, against 31% in a typical week like this one. Bryce Young and Tyler Shough were the hot commodities, and the most fought-over players at the position.
A case study from my own league. It's a 14-team, one-quarterback league with a $200 budget. Bryce Young went for $83. Four other managers bid, from $23 to $36. Tyler Shough went for $77 in the same run, and five other managers bid, from $10 to $64. Across all our leagues, those two typically took about 15% and 14% of budget to win. In my league they went for about 40%, nearly three times as much.
Our board told my league to bid $21 on each of them. That was never going to win.
What drove it was a perfect storm. Three teams lost their starting quarterback to injury, and two more had spent high picks on quarterbacks who were struggling, Drake Maye and Justin Herbert. That is a lot of desperate teams in one league. And Young and Shough had both shown real flashes, the kind that hint at a season-long starter rather than a one-week stream.
When that happens, the price is not set by what the players are worth. It is set by how badly the most desperate team needs one. That is exactly the kind of week the new method on every player card is trying to spot.
We already read the signals that bring a crowd: how widely a player is rostered across the country, who is being added most this week, and whether an injury just opened a starting job. Until now those only decided which number the card led with. They did not move the bid itself.
That is the next change. We have a version that scales your league's bid by those signals, and we froze it before the next waiver run so we cannot tune it after seeing the results. We will grade it here next week, against the bid you see today.
We are also implementing a player sentiment tracker that will help us better identify the most hyped players each week. We think this signal will be good at picking out which players will draw the most contested auctions, which is a signal that will move our recommended bid toward the players who draw a crowd.
One rule stays. Your league's own history prices your board. Other leagues fill holes, and the card says when they did.
Measured across 458 FAABFAX member leagues whose waiver results we have for this run. Private leagues reach us only when a member refreshes from their own browser, usually about a week later. This page was re-scored the following Wednesday to include the ones that arrived late. Aggregates only. No league, team or manager is named anywhere on this page, and a player appears only when at least 5 leagues bid on them.
Prices are shares of budget, not dollars. Leagues run different budgets. A $50 bid in a $100 league and a $500 bid in a $1,000 league are the same bid, and both show here as 50%. That is the only way to put every league in one table.
Two different prices, and the gap between them matters. "A typical bid" is the middle of every offer made on that player, winners and losers together. "The winning bid" is what the manager who won actually paid, so it sits at the top of that range by definition. When the two are far apart, a few managers wanted that player badly and the rest did not.
"Won by" is the winning bid minus the next-highest bid. It needs the losing bids to exist at all, and it tells you something the winning bid alone cannot: whether the winner had to stretch. A small gap means everyone agreed on the price. A big gap means the winner could have paid less and still won.
| Player | Leaguesthat bid | A typical bidshare of budget | The winning bidshare of budget | Won byover the next-best bid | Two or more bidders |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emanuel WilsonRB | 280583 bids | 6.0%middle of all bids | 10.0%5.0% to 16.1% | 6.0%in 153 auctions with a clear winner | 57%of those leagues |
| Adonai MitchellWR | 225576 bids | 5.5%middle of all bids | 10.0%5.0% to 16.0% | 3.0%in 140 auctions with a clear winner | 64%of those leagues |
| Jonah ColemanRB | 135402 bids | 9.0%middle of all bids | 15.8%8.0% to 28.9% | 6.0%in 104 auctions with a clear winner | 79%of those leagues |
| Bryce YoungQB | 180471 bids | 7.0%middle of all bids | 11.0%5.0% to 20.0% | 6.0%in 123 auctions with a clear winner | 70%of those leagues |
| Denzel BostonWR | 112350 bids | 10.0%middle of all bids | 15.5%9.8% to 25.0% | 5.0%in 81 auctions with a clear winner | 76%of those leagues |
| Tyler ShoughQB | 122301 bids | 6.0%middle of all bids | 11.0%5.0% to 20.0% | 4.0%in 89 auctions with a clear winner | 75%of those leagues |
| Dalton SchultzTE | 142263 bids | 5.0%middle of all bids | 7.4%3.0% to 13.0% | 5.0%in 74 auctions with a clear winner | 53%of those leagues |
| Marcus MariotaQB | 65169 bids | 8.2%middle of all bids | 16.0%7.1% to 28.2% | 5.0%in 42 auctions with a clear winner | 68%of those leagues |
| Tre TuckerWR | 128259 bids | 5.0%middle of all bids | 7.1%3.7% to 13.0% | 4.5%in 68 auctions with a clear winner | 57%of those leagues |
| Jameis WinstonQB | 53130 bids | 8.5%middle of all bids | 16.0%2.7% to 30.0% | 4.0%in 30 auctions with a clear winner | 64%of those leagues |
| Dontayvion WicksWR | 98213 bids | 5.0%middle of all bids | 7.0%3.0% to 12.0% | 3.0%in 51 auctions with a clear winner | 57%of those leagues |
| Tank BigsbyRB | 91140 bids | 4.0%middle of all bids | 6.0%2.2% to 9.2% | 1.8%in 32 auctions with a clear winner | 35%of those leagues |
| Rashod BatemanWR | 123196 bids | 3.0%middle of all bids | 4.4%1.2% to 9.0% | 2.9%in 38 auctions with a clear winner | 35%of those leagues |
| Minnesota VikingsDEF | 152293 bids | 2.0%middle of all bids | 3.0%1.0% to 5.0% | 1.3%in 81 auctions with a clear winner | 53%of those leagues |
| Patrick MahomesQB | 2363 bids | 10.0%middle of all bids | 18.0%10.5% to 32.0% | 6.8%in 18 auctions with a clear winner | 78%of those leagues |
| Oronde GadsdenTE | 108162 bids | 3.0%middle of all bids | 3.7%1.0% to 10.0% | 2.0%in 33 auctions with a clear winner | 33%of those leagues |
| Jared GoffQB | 59111 bids | 5.0%middle of all bids | 6.0%4.0% to 12.0% | 3.3%in 32 auctions with a clear winner | 58%of those leagues |
| Bijan RobinsonRB | 570 bids | 35.9%middle of all bids | 70.0%65.0% to 81.6% | 5.5%in 5 auctions with a clear winner | 100%of those leagues |
| Puka NacuaWR | 887 bids | 22.7%middle of all bids | 38.7%31.9% to 48.4% | 4.2%in 6 auctions with a clear winner | 88%of those leagues |
| Kirk CousinsQB | 5884 bids | 2.6%middle of all bids | 5.0%1.0% to 11.3% | 2.5%in 18 auctions with a clear winner | 31%of those leagues |
| Justin JeffersonWR | 656 bids | 21.7%middle of all bids | 47.9%42.7% to 59.5% | 7.4%in 6 auctions with a clear winner | 100%of those leagues |
| Keon ColemanWR | 111160 bids | 2.0%middle of all bids | 2.4%0.0% to 7.0% | 1.0%in 31 auctions with a clear winner | 29%of those leagues |
| Darren WallerTE | 8094 bids | 2.0%middle of all bids | 3.0%0.1% to 6.9% | 3.0%in 10 auctions with a clear winner | 14%of those leagues |
| Terrance FergusonTE | 77106 bids | 2.0%middle of all bids | 3.0%0.7% to 7.0% | 1.1%in 22 auctions with a clear winner | 32%of those leagues |
| Kyler MurrayQB | 76118 bids | 2.5%middle of all bids | 3.0%1.0% to 8.8% | 2.8%in 24 auctions with a clear winner | 32%of those leagues |
| Devaughn VeleWR | 2137 bids | 5.1%middle of all bids | 10.1%5.7% to 13.4% | 4.0%in 8 auctions with a clear winner | 38%of those leagues |
| Josh DownsWR | 2550 bids | 8.0%middle of all bids | 8.0%4.0% to 15.0% | 2.5%in 10 auctions with a clear winner | 40%of those leagues |
| Saquon BarkleyRB | 667 bids | 12.7%middle of all bids | 31.8%24.8% to 34.3% | 2.8%in 6 auctions with a clear winner | 100%of those leagues |
| Alvin KamaraRB | 4166 bids | 2.7%middle of all bids | 4.0%1.0% to 6.5% | 2.8%in 10 auctions with a clear winner | 29%of those leagues |
| Cincinnati BengalsDEF | 149209 bids | 1.0%middle of all bids | 1.0%0.0% to 3.0% | 1.0%in 46 auctions with a clear winner | 32%of those leagues |
| Drew LockQB | 7495 bids | 1.2%middle of all bids | 2.0%0.0% to 6.0% | 1.5%in 14 auctions with a clear winner | 20%of those leagues |
| Sam DarnoldQB | 1324 bids | 1.3%middle of all bids | 11.0%1.0% to 11.1% | 9.8%in 3 auctions with a clear winner | 23%of those leagues |
| Caleb DouglasWR | 1733 bids | 4.8%middle of all bids | 7.5%2.4% to 15.2% | 2.0%in 7 auctions with a clear winner | 47%of those leagues |
| Tyson BagentQB | 3453 bids | 3.0%middle of all bids | 3.7%1.4% to 11.1% | 5.1%in 12 auctions with a clear winner | 35%of those leagues |
| Michael PenixQB | 2546 bids | 3.6%middle of all bids | 5.0%0.6% to 8.8% | 5.5%in 7 auctions with a clear winner | 36%of those leagues |
| Jordan LoveQB | 4157 bids | 1.0%middle of all bids | 3.0%0.0% to 5.0% | 0.0%in 9 auctions with a clear winner | 27%of those leagues |
| Malik NabersWR | 644 bids | 8.2%middle of all bids | 20.5%16.7% to 28.1% | 7.3%in 6 auctions with a clear winner | 100%of those leagues |
| Zach ErtzTE | 3862 bids | 1.0%middle of all bids | 3.2%0.6% to 9.5% | 5.8%in 8 auctions with a clear winner | 29%of those leagues |
| Carolina PanthersDEF | 101127 bids | 0.2%middle of all bids | 1.0%0.0% to 2.1% | 0.0%in 21 auctions with a clear winner | 24%of those leagues |
| Xavier WorthyWR | 1632 bids | 2.0%middle of all bids | 6.0%0.0% to 10.3% | 2.3%in 3 auctions with a clear winner | 19%of those leagues |
Each number is this week against a typical week like it: the same week in 2024 and 2025, from public leagues, weighted to match our mix of superflex and one-QB leagues.
"Two or more bidders" is how often a player drew a real auction instead of being picked up for nothing. When that share rises, people are panicking. "Won by" is how far above the next-best bid the winner landed. A small number means everyone agreed on the price. A big one means the winner could have paid less and still won. "Paid double" is how often the winner bid at least twice the next-highest bid.
| Two or more biddersshare of players | Typical winning bidshare of budget | Won byabove the next-best bid | Paid doubleor more than the next bid | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Every position5,810 players | 35%+43% vs baseline | 8.0%-11% vs baseline | 3.0%-25% vs baseline | 30%+3% vs baseline |
| RB1,116 players | 43%+55% vs baseline | 10.0%-17% vs baseline | 3.5%-30% vs baseline | 29%-2% vs baseline |
| WR1,623 players | 38%+56% vs baseline | 10.0%+43% vs baseline | 3.0%-25% vs baseline | 29%-6% vs baseline |
| QB1,087 players | 44%+44% vs baseline | 11.0%-31% vs baseline | 4.0%-33% vs baseline | 35%+13% vs baseline |
| TE726 players | 27%+71% vs baseline | 7.0%+0% vs baseline | 3.0%+12% vs baseline | 33%+1% vs baseline |
In a superflex league a quarterback can also fill the flex spot, so teams need more of them. We keep those leagues apart from one-QB leagues so a quarterback price is never a blend of the two.
| League type | QB priceshare of budget | Two or more bidders |
|---|---|---|
| Superflex104 leagues, 23% of them | 11.3%typical winning QB bid | 44%of QB claims |
| Two-QB7 leagues, 2% of them | 8.4%typical winning QB bid | 38%of QB claims |
| One-QB347 leagues, 76% of them | 11.0%typical winning QB bid | 44%of QB claims |
| Quarterback | Superflexwinning bid | One-QBwinning bid |
|---|---|---|
| Bryce Young | 21.0%in 5 leagues | 11.0%in 175 leagues |
| Marcus Mariota | 16.5%in 55 leagues | 8.5%in 6 leagues |
| Kirk Cousins | 8.0%in 22 leagues | 1.0%in 33 leagues |
| Drew Lock | 4.0%in 26 leagues | 2.0%in 43 leagues |
| Tyson Bagent | 5.5%in 27 leagues | 0.1%in 5 leagues |
More claims were contested than usual. 35% of claims had two or more bidders, against 25% in a typical week like this one (+43%).
TE drew more competition than usual: 27% of TE claims had two or more bidders, against 16% in a typical week (+71%). The winning TE bid was a median 7.0% of budget, against 7.0%.
QB drew more competition than usual: 44% of QB claims had two or more bidders, against 31% in a typical week (+44%). The winning QB bid was a median 11.0% of budget, against 16.0%.
Our P60 bid swung more than prices did. When it said under 8% of budget it won 25% of contested claims, and those players took a median 11.6%. When it said 22% or more it won 77%, and those took a median 17.0%. Too low at one end, too high at the other.
Our card led with the contested price on 634 claims that ended up drawing a single bidder. The minimum bid would have won every one, so following our number there cost a median 15.0% of budget for nothing.