Who To Draft—And Not Draft—In Guillotine Leagues
Paul Charchian uncovers NFL players he's drafting in Guillotine Leagues, and those he's passing by. He gives his reasoning for both player types.
Your Guillotine LeaguesTM draft will be different from every other fantasy draft you've ever executed.
In "normal" fantasy leagues, you're trying to finish in first place out of 12 teams, so you've got to take multiple big risks, and hope they pay off at some point during the season, in order to make your team better than 11 others.
Embrace The Difference In Guillotine Leagues
But Guillotine Leagues are an entirely different beast. To carry that metaphor forward, a normal fantasy draft is a gerbil … familiar and boring. A Guillotine League draft is a duck-billed platypus, arguably the weirdest animal to ever walk the earth.
Every part of the duck-billed platypus is scientifically inexplicable. It hunts with its electricity-shooting bill. It defends itself with a poison attack in its foot. It's the only mammal that lays eggs. It uses sonar to find prey in the water. It has a beaver's tail and an otter's foot. It glows luminously under black light.
Freaking weird, right? For 100 years, biologists thought reports of its existence were a hoax.
If you were playing a video game and creating a character that can shoot electricity, attack with poison, swim like a fish, run on land, and locate with sonar, you'd run out of skill points.
While everyone else is applying a "gerbil strategy" in their Guillotine draft, you're going to go full-blown DBP.
In a Guillotine League, you're playing not to finish last in any week. That means, you're drafting with three key objectives:
- Target players with a weekly high floor. In an 18-team Guillotine League, your goal for Week 1 is to finish 17th or better. Your goal in Week 2 is to finish 16th. And so on. Finishing first in any week gains you nothing. You’ve got to embrace this new way of thinking: Dud games end Guillotine seasons. You want to draft a full roster of boring, consistent players.
- Mostly, eschew rookies. One of the best tactics to winning a traditional league is to correctly identify rookies who’ll emerge over the course of the season. In a Guillotine League, you don’t have the luxury of waiting for rookies to emerge. You'll be chopped by then.
- Avoid the unknown, the injured, and the incompetent. This is the wrong format to roll the dice on players with question marks. Sure, Stefon Diggs might end up as the Patriots' top wideout. But, will he fully return to form from his ACL in September or December? You can't wait and see what happens in a Guillotine League. When your head is on the chopping block every week, you need immediate results. Last year, if you rolled the dice on question-mark guys like Nick Chubb, T.J. Hockenson, or Kirk Cousins, you likely didn't survive the month of September.
For some of you, the shift in strategy will be frightening, possibly to the point of soiling yourself sometime near Round 9. But stay strong, and focus on the learning opportunities you'll find in each of the 14 rounds of your Guillotine draft.
This guide will illuminate the players who I would—and would not—trust with my own roster in each round.
I'm Drafting These Guys
Round 1: Brian Thomas Jr.
Young receivers can be volatile, but Brian Thomas' final third of 2024 revealed a complete beast—and the focal point of the entire Jaguars offense. From Week 11 forward, only Puka Nacua had a higher target/route run rate. Only Courtland Sutton and A.J. Brown had higher air-yard percentages. And no player had a higher end-zone target percentage.
Round 2: Trey McBride
Sure, you could slough the tight end position, but you're playing with fire. There's nowhere close to 18 reliable tight ends. Entering any Sunday with, say Dalton Schultz, as your tight end is a recipe for a bowel-loosening level of anxiety. Among tight ends, Trey McBride ranked No. 1 in route percentage and utilization score (93).
Round 3: Jalen Hurts
Almost every week, quarterbacks score some fantasy points. So, waiting on the position is a valid option. But the tush push makes Jalen Hurts a special Guillotine asset, providing both a high floor and a high ceiling. In Hurts' 19 games last year, he finished as a top-5 scorer 11 times, and outside of the top 10 just five times.
Round 4: David Montgomery
It's rare that you'll feel safe burning a valuable fourth-round pick on a team's second-best running back. But David Montgomery is a unique case, thanks to his punishing running style and Dan Campbell's commitment to the ground game. Last year, Montgomery finished lower than RB19 only three times, making him very safe.
Round 5: Khalil Shakir
The Bills felt so strongly about Khalil Shakir's emergence last year, they rewarded him with $53 million—a price tag that suggests Shakir's role will be greater in 2025. His upside is tapped because of his short aDOT, just 5.6 yards, and limited scoring. But unique to Guillotine Leagues, a 5-60-0 stat line keeps you alive through Thanksgiving.
Round 6: Rhamondre Stevenson
I'm the last person off the quickly-sinking U.S.S. Rhamondre Stevenson, but hear me out. Last year's offensive line and coaching staff were diseased—Barry Sanders couldn't have been productive. While with Tennessee, head coach Mike Vrabel ran the ball the second-most times for the second-most yards.
Round 7: Jakobi Meyers
The Raiders added a lot of rookie receivers, but none appear ready to challenge Jakobi Meyers as the Raiders’ go-to wideout. In his two seasons for Las Vegas, Meyers has quietly posted 106 and 129 targets, making him a safe, bankable asset. Perhaps most importantly, Meyers gets his best quarterback since Tom Brady.
Round 8: Evan Engram
After Courtland Sutton, Evan Engram is the Broncos' most-proven pass catcher. Octogenarians will recall that Sean Payton turned Jimmy Graham into a powerhouse from 2011 to 2014, when he averaged 89 receptions, 1,101 yards, and 11.5 touchdowns. For some perspective, those numbers would have made him TE1 last year.
Round 9: J.J. McCarthy
I've asked Fantasy Life writer Thor Nystrom to author this writeup. "WTF. Why is J.J. McCarthy still on the board in Round 9?! Obviously, you'll want to take McCarthy here, even if you've already drafted three other quarterbacks, since he'll end up as your best one. Also, Charch, you owe me $15 for that lunch last January."
Round 10: Hollywood Brown
In late December, when Hollywood Brown returned from his preseason clavicle injury, I didn't expect much. But he immediately established himself as Patrick Mahomes' second-favorite wideout, averaging 6 targets per game. Particularly if Rashee Rice isn't available at the start of the season, Brown could be a solid early-season contributor.
Round 11: Austin Ekeler
Last season, Austin Ekeler was Guillotine-viable until about midseason, at which point you needed more points than he usually provided. But two months of service is fantastic for an 11th-rounder. As a combo threat, one way or another, he found his way to double-digit PPR points in 8 of his first 10 games last year.
Round 12: Kareem Hunt
We've officially reached the stage of a Guillotine draft where I'm taking players I don't like. Kareem Hunt's metrics were awful last year, generating no real production beyond what his offensive line could muster. And he's a year older. But the Chiefs quickly re-signed him in March and Isiah Pacheco's status is unclear.
Round 13: Dyami Brown
Commanders fans have to feel bitten by a guy who averaged less than 1 catch per game for three seasons, then went berserk in three playoff games and promptly abandoned the team for a deal in Jacksonville. Maybe, just maybe, the version we saw in January is who Trevor Lawrence will be throwing to.
Round 14: Dameon Pierce
You're going to be dropping your Round 14 draft picks as early as Week 1 when you start bidding on awesome free agents who just got chopped. So, I'm throwing a dart on Houston's backup, mostly because I don't like the version of Joe Mixon I saw during the second half of last year, when he averaged 3.4 yards per carry.
I'M NOT DRAFTING THESE GUYS
Round 1: Christian McCaffrey
I don't need to explain the upside (RB1 in 2023) and downside (RB70 in 2024) of Christian McCaffrey. Instead, I'll explain that CMC is far too risky for a format that puts a premium on safety. Even as the Niners' undisputed Week 1 starter, CMC carries immense age and injury risk. Plus his offensive line might be rubbish.
Round 2: Tee Higgins
Eating a banana can be great, especially when you nail the perfect blend of sweetness and firmness. But who eats a second banana? Nobody. Similarly, we're not drafting Tee Higgins this early. Ja'Marr Chase (rightfully) led the league in targets last year, and some games, Higgins just didn't see enough targets to be Guillotine-viable.
Round 3: Rashee Rice
For the first three games of last year, it looked like Rashee Rice was going to be amazing, piling up 24-288-2. He's expected to recover from his LCL injury by Week 1, but remember, your first priority in a Guillotine League is to survive September, and players coming off injury are a major threat for early-season inconsistencies.
Round 4: Deebo Samuel
For Guillotine use, Deebo Samuel is a major red flag. Sure, his usage could/will change under Kliff Kingsbury, but we'd need to see a lot of change before you can trust him. In San Francisco, his sparse targets and short aDOT simply didn't create production. He fell below WR32 in 10 different weeks and ended the season as WR40.
Round 5: Cooper Kupp
I'm baffled by Seattle's three-year commitment to Cooper Kupp, who looks to be in the final stanza of his career. Injured and inconsistent for three seasons, Kupp wasn't able to provide reliable fantasy value with Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford. Now at age 32, he'll need to wring out fantasy points with Klint Kubiak and Sam Darnold.
Round 6: Rashid Shaheed
Somewhere in suburban New Orleans, cooterdoodle is leafing through random pages of our Fantasy Life Magazine, when BLAMMO, she catches a stray in the middle of a Guillotine article. Rashid Shaheed is a Fantasy Life favorite, but his absurd 17.4-yard aDOT means when he doesn't haul in long bombs, you're chopped.
Round 7: Tua Tagovailoa
Round 7 is waaay too early to draft a non-rushing quarterback, let alone one with a significant history of concussion. If you've sloughed the quarterback position this long, you may as well wait another several rounds because the passers who are still available carry roughly the same guillotine risk profile as Tua Tagovailoa.
Round 8: Tyjae Spears
At this stage of the Guillotine draft, every starting runner is taken. But Tyjae Spears isn't the backup I want. My middle-round runners need to have some glimmer of hope to find the end zone, something that's eluded Spears. In 29 career games, he's scored just 6 times, and only 3 from inside the 5-yard line.
Round 9: Rico Dowdle
Once Dak Prescott's season ended, Rico Dowdle turned into the focal point of the offense, averaging 20 carries per game. But Chuba Hubbard looked great last year, and Dave Canales loves him, as evidenced by Hubbard's fourth-best RB utilization score (85). Dowdle has managed just 9 career touchdowns on 387 touches.
Round 10: Alec Pierce
Move over, Gabe Davis. If there's one NFL player emblematic of who not to draft in a Guillotine League, it's Alec Pierce. Pierce is a low-volume, downfield speed merchant who is completely reliant on deep touchdowns. Last year, when he didn't score, he averaged a horrifying 1 catch per game.
Round 11: DeAndre Hopkins
Now on his fourth team in four years, I can't even assure you DeAndre Hopkins will make Baltimore's opening day roster. Last year, the Chiefs desperately needed Hopkins to fill the vacated roles of Rashee Rice and Hollywood Brown, yet he averaged only 4-44-0.4. Now he's a year older, playing in an offense that ranked 31st in pass-play percentage.
Round 12: Mike Williams
In a career that stretches all the way back to 2017, Mike Williams has produced exactly one reliable fantasy season, and that was way back in 2021. Some guys never recover from their ACL surgeries, and I fear that's the case with Williams. He finished as WR50 or worse 14 (!) times last year.
Round 13: Devin Singletary
Even in the final rounds of a deep, 18-team Guillotine League draft, I'm going to motor away from Singletary. Last year, he quickly and resoundingly lost his job to Tyrone Tracy, including at the goal line, where he saw only three carries after Week 3. And rookie bulldog Cam Skattebo is likely to take the role this year.
Round 14: Dontayvion Wicks
I'm shocked people are drafting Dontayvion Wicks at all, but his summer ADP puts him at Round 14, a position that's still too high for my taste. A couple times a year, Wicks makes a terrific play that gives you hope for a brighter future. But in 29 of 35 career games, Wicks has failed to top 3 receptions, a recipe for disaster in Guillotine.
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