The Pickup Artist: Your Insider Guide to Waiver Wire Snags

The Pickup Artist will thoroughly entertain you, and recommend a waiver wire sleeper for Week 13 to give your fantasy football team the edge it needs to win.

The Pickup Artist will not only attempt to thoroughly entertain you, but will also do his best to sneak in a waiver wire snag for the given week. We're here to give your fantasy football team the edge it needs to win, and to help you become a waiver wire pickup artist.  After reading this piece, we feel very confident that you, our fellow RotoBaller, will be well on your way to becoming a full blown PUA.

The Fantasy Football Pickup Artist

For Week 13, we are going to channel our inner Jeff Gordon and race over to our league's waiver wire to insta-snag Detroit's sleeper-no-more wide receiver, Nate Burleson.  Take it for what it's worth, but you probably should have picked him up heading into last weeks probable start, after missing most of the season with a broken left forearm allegedly suffered in a car "accident".  Don't beat yourself up about this one if he wasn't already on your fantasy radar, because only the most experienced and professional of pickup artists would have been leaving the bar with this hot chick one week ago.  Fear not as Burleson is still only owned in a meager 26% of Yahoo fantasy football leagues, leaving you with plenty of potential to still add him to your roster for the home stretch. So get your FAAB money and waiver wire priority bids in tonight because this may be the last big opportunity to add an impact free agent wide receiver before your team's fate is sealed for good.

• 2025 fantasy football rankings
• Running back (RB) fantasy football rankings
• Wide receiver (WR) fantasy football rankings
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• Quarterback (QB) fantasy football rankings
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• Defense (D/ST) fantasy football rankings
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• Dynasty fantasy football rankings

While Megatron was being blanketed and harassed by Tampa's #1 cornerbacks all game (mostly Revis Island before he tore up his groin), Burleson was busy putting up 7 receptions (on 10 targets) for 77 receiving yards and a touchdown in Week 12.  In this surprisingly competitive game against the almost winless Buccaneers, he was one of the only positive offensive highlights for Detroit in the entire game and there is a lot to hope for in the future as the Lions will be hosting the defensively challenged Packers in their cozy indoor confines on Thanksgiving Day.  After Week 13, Nate The Great gets a cake-like matchup versus the anemic Philadelphia secondary where he is projected to do big things, so the next 2 weeks look super solid if you are on the market for a potential sleeper, stud, wider receiver who could easily be plugged in as a WR3 or Flex option.  Look, the bottom line is this: you're obviously still reading this article because you are either intrigued by Baby Boy Burleson's huge upside for the remainder of the 2013 fantasy football schedule, or because you are a huge fan of the junky nicknames I give every NFL player I write about, and are hoping I'll mention yet another player's name.  Either way, being a pick-up artist requires you to know when it's time to act and make a move, and for Week 13, that time is tonight kids.  So hit that waiver wire hard and bid on Detroit's #2 wide receiver with every shekel left in your wallet.

Well, I'd say that's enough name-calling, stat-trolling and player speculation for this week, but feel free to come back for more of this lovely high-end banter each and every week for the rest of the fantasy football season.  We wish everyone lots of luck in their Week 13 matchups (especially if you are on the playoff bubble).  Until next time, it’s Real Talk Raph saying “I told you so” in advance!