Four Players I Am Not Drafting In My Guillotine Leagues

If you know enough about fantasy football, you'll do just fine in a Guillotine League™. But do you want to do "just fine"?? Or do you want to run the table, survive every week, and emerge as the last team standing in a heart-stopping bit of action like no other game out there?

The latter, right? 

Read on for four players I'm steering clear of in my drafts this preseason -- and you should, too. For all of the Guillotine League ADPs, click here and pull down "Guillotine Leagues" in the "Provider" box.

Note: This has been "lightly edited "from the August 28th episode of "CHOP: The Guillotine League Podcast"

ADP Bummer #1: Quinshon Judkins (RB, Cleveland) , 88.7 Guillotine Leagues ADP

I'm out of there. I am not buying this one. Someone else can have Judkins. I'm totally fine with that.

The fact that he still has not signed his rookie contract is concerning, even though the case was dismissed. In addition, you have that the NFL is still investigating it. 

We are almost in September now, so that is problematic. and he's not in game shape. He's going to have to learn the timing of the offense. He’s going to have to learn the concepts, running within the flow of his offensive line and running with tempo behind them. 

This is a guy whose game—the special sauce of it—is field tempo and vision. And he hasn't been on the field. He doesn't give you anything in the passing game anyway, even when he's at his full powers.

But I am out on Judkins this year. You know the guy I'm in on for Guillotine—it's Jerome Ford (136.3 GL ADP). He's gonna be your Week One starter.

ADP Bummer #2: Jordan Addison (WR, Minnesota), 102.3 GL ADP

This is a great example of the discrepancies in how you value an asset in a standard league against a Guillotine League. 

The first month of the season is very hairy if you are going to invest an asset into Addison being out the first three games plus an early bye week. I don't think I can do it either in a Guillotine League. 
However, I like his fit in this offense, and I can tell you from this summer in Egan and then mostly in training camp -- because QB JJ McCarthy was only out there for one series -- that McCarthy and Addison had a tremendous rapport that they have developed. 

McCarthy is a really good anticipatory thrower and Addison as a receiver not only runs good routes—you can set your watch on that guy being to his spot on the field exactly when he says he's going to be -- and then making that clean cut and turning around right when you think he's going to. 

So for anticipatory throwers, Addison is like a gift to them. You can just keep ringing it up, ringing it up, ringing it up, and we saw that this summer. I think you're going to see that coalesce when Addison comes back and down the stretch. 

But that’s not going to help you in Guillotine Leagues. Unfortunately, that asset is zero there for the first month, roughly. I don't want anything to do with Addison in Guillotine Leagues for that reason, even though I do think he's going to be really good down the stretch.

ADP Bummer #3: Brian Robinson (RB, San Francisco), 84.3 GL ADP

Robinson is interesting as he sits behind Christian McCaffrey, who has had some injury issues. You could make the argument for him as a handcuff.

To me, his ADP is still a little bit rich for my blood, even though he's behind the injury-prone guy and Kyle Shanahan has a really good run system. 

However, he isn’t the only backup running back there and we have no idea that he's the RB2 on that team. The 49ers gave up a pitiful sixth round pick for him and Shanahan will play whoever he feels is best in the moment. 

We'll see how Robinson ends up acclimating there. The nightmare scenario is he's not even RB2 and when that opportunity would come up, it would go to someone else. 

On the other side of it, if there does happen to be a McCaffrey injury and Robinson happens to take the stranglehold of the RB2 spot, San Francisco — by the way, I hate when they do strength of schedule based on last year's team records; however, if you do it that way, San Francisco — has the easiest strength of schedule in the NFL this year, but especially down the stretch: their last three games are Titans, Colts, and Bears, from week 15 to 17, when you're in the playoffs. 

So if McCaffrey did get injured and Robinson was in that situation, you can see this thing both ways. 

But at that current ADP, I still think it's a little rich within the circumstance that we're in. So I'm going to sell Brian Robinson.

ADP Bummer #4: Rashee Rice (WR, Kansas City), 58 GL ADP

Rashee Rice is undraftable in Guillotine Leagues. 

And don't worry, if you love Rice, if your team is good enough to get there down the stretch, you're going to get another crack at him on the waiver wire when he is going to be playing. 

So that's when you want to look to acquire Rashee Rice in a Guillotine League. What you don't want to do is to delineate a pick to him that's sort of near where his ADP is now. 

Don't use a pick on him at all.

For the full episode, click below: