A Guide to Guillotine Leagues

Photo: Joe Rondone, USA Today Sports

One of the best things about fantasy football is that once you are up to speed on the pool of NFL players, you can apply your knowledge to any format. Every set of league rules and scoring is a puzzle and we give you the tools to customize your approach to that puzzle in the most effective way possible. Creative people are coming up with new formats that make drafting and managing your teams even more fun and exciting. One of the best ones to try out is a Guillotine league.

What is a Guillotine league?

• 18 teams
• 14-player rosters/14-round draft
• Start 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 2 RB/WR/TE FLEX
• PPR scoring with 4 pt pass TDs and 1 pt per 25 passing yards
• Weekly Blind bid waiver runs

Seems simple enough? Here’s the twist. Every week the lowest scoring team is chopped, and their players get thrown into the pool to be acquired via blind bids from a 1,000 unit budget. This creates a much more intense week-to-week experience than a typical league because every week has the adrenaline rush of mortality that usually only comes in the fantasy playoffs. The implications are multiple:

Monday Night Sweats: Going into the Monday night game, multiple teams are glued to the results as there are usually at least 2-3 teams that could mathematically end up being the team chopped for that week, pending the results.

Lineup Setting Agony: Each week, lineup setting takes on increased importance. It isn’t easy to start a player who is a game-time decision or could be limited or suffer an aggravation of an existing injury because it could mean curtains for your team. Each week, your decisions could determine whether you live or die.

Waiver Wire Four-Dimensional Chess: Players that never hit the waiver wire in normal leagues will hit the waiver wire in guillotine leagues. Sometimes they are injured studs, who can help you last til the end, but offer no immediate help. Sometimes they are underperforming studs who could be a trap play that dooms you to the same fate as the team that just got chopped with them on the roster. You have to decide whether to spend big early on a stud who can give you a larger margin of error while the field is large versus sitting on your waiver wire dollars to give an extra advantage if you can make it to the last four or five teams is something you’ll be weighing every week.

The bottom line is that you will care greatly about everything you do in this league, whether it’s your waiver wire bids, your lineup setting, or watching the results.

GUILLOTINE LEAGUE STRATEGY

If You’re Not Last, You’re First: Unlike typical leagues where you are trying to build the best, highest-scoring team, your focus here is to build a roster that will help ensure you are not last. This should change your approach to player rankings and team builds.

Consistency Matters: Boom/bust plays that are more valuable in best-ball leagues can doom your guillotine team with poorly timed floor weeks. Slot receivers and possession receivers who are a stable part of the game plan every week are more likely to save your bacon by giving you consistent PPR points. However, big play receivers can save you by giving you a ceiling week when other players let you down.