In the strip cold rolling process, the inclined wave defect is an atypical flatness defect that can adversely affect the subsequent coating process. In order to investigate the causes of inclined wave defects, the tension stress distribution in the cold rolling process was investigated by using the method of assuming pre-buckling load distribution and stress boundary conditions in this paper. According to the study, the load distribution that produces the inclined wave defect was obtained, and the load distribution was verified by finite element simulation. The results show that the obtained load distributions are consistent with the conditions for the generation of inclined wave defects. On this basis, the influence laws of several parameters on the inclined wave defects are obtained through rolling test and simulation analysis, and the effective suppression of strip inclined wave defects is achieved.