With four games in the books, the 2013 NFL season is off to a surprising start. The Kansas City Chiefs are 4-0, the New York Giants are 0-4, but more importantly, both my fantasy teams are 3-1.

Those three wins have cost me some friendships and countless hours of productivity at my job. I make these sacrifices so that you can read, implement and dominate yourself. Here are a few musings from the first four weeks of the season.

Lucky First Week Losses?

For the uninitiated, the waiver wire order in fantasy football is a cryptic process. Following the Monday night game, all free agents enter a waiver period from Tuesday to Wednesday morning. During this period, waiver order for the owners is determined based on the worst-to-first standings. The newly claimed players are then added to rosters based on the waiver order. As an example, if two owners put in claims for Player X, the team with the worse record will receive the player. After Wednesday morning, all players that have cleared waivers become free agents than can be immediately added and dropped by owners. The system exists to promote parity in the league.

The first few weeks of a season are bound to reveal some hidden talent that was overlooked during the preseason. For example, after the first few weeks, Detroit Lions running back Joique Bell and Denver Broncos tight end Julius Thomas went from players that were undrafted in most leagues to legitimate must-starts.

I can guarantee almost everyone in my leagues put in claims for Thomas after his 110 yard, two touchdown performance Week 1. Who got him? The guy at 0-1 whose team scored the least points that week. Thomas is currently the third best tight end in ESPN standard scoring leagues.

Is there a case to be made for deliberately tanking Week 1, so as to set yourself up to sit atop the waiver order and poach the unexpected stars of Week 1? It’s a little deranged, but if Thomas keeps producing, it’s a strategy I wouldn’t totally rule out for next season.

 Musical Defenses 

There are two prevalent approaches to handling the defense/special teams slot on a fantasy roster. Owners can either 1) draft an elite defense, like Seattle, Cincinnati or San Francisco, or 2) use the waiver wire to find the defense facing the worst offense every week. As we are already four weeks into the season and well past draft day, I’m only going to dedicate time to the latter here.

The success of this approach will fluctuate from league to league as the available free agent D/ST will vary.

In my leagues, I’ve started:

WEEK 1) KS vs. JAC 2) OAK vs. JAC 3) MIN vs. CLE 4) MIN vs. PIT

WEEK 1) PIT vs. TEN 2) BAL vs. CLE 3) MIN vs. CLE 4) MIN vs. PIT

The first string combined to give me the 4th best scoring defense, while the second string yielded a pedestrian 16th.

For Week 5, I set my sights on the Rams D/ST, as they are going up against the Jacksonville Jaguars. If you chose to start the D/ST up against Jacksonville every week so far this season, it would result in the second highest scoring fantasy defense – the Jags are having a rough year.

There are some added benefits to this approach. If you are in multiple leagues, you can try to make the same waiver wire moves and preserve some of your sanity by only having to root for one defense.

Of course, like all innovative approaches, the more people that adopt the strategy in the same league, the less effective it becomes. In one of my leagues, a like-minded owner ahead of me on the waiver wire picked up the Rams D/ST so I had to settle for the Eagles D/ST against the slow-start New York Giants.

 Is the RB FLEX Era over? 

Two years ago, unless you had a stacked receiving corps, it was insane to start a wideout at the FLEX. So far in 2013, it seems like the smarter play. With the backfield by committee approach becoming more pervasive throughout the league (see Denver, Cincinnati, New Orleans) backs aren’t getting as many touches as they have in the past. In 2012, running back’s comprised 22 of the 50 top scoring FLEX players. So far in 2013, only 17 RB’s break the top 50 (ESPN standard scoring).

– Dylan Lewis can be reached at [email protected]