What is a Guillotine League? Basic Rules and Strategy

If your traditional fantasy football home leagues are feeling a little bit stale or outdated, let me introduce you to , an innovative way to raise the stakes 𝓡in a typical fantasy football league. In Guillotine Leagues, the risk of an⛎ underperforming team isn’t just a loss in your record, but potential banishment from the league.

As more and more people play fantasy football every year, creative approaches to the traditional head-to-head points leagues are exploding i๊n popularity. Guillotine Leagues are filling a niche that caters to those looking for a fun and new spin on the leagues they🀅 have played in for years. 

What Is a Guillotine League?

Guillotine Leagues, as the name implies, are defined by who gets chopped each week. Throw out the idea of playing against an opponent week-to-week and start thinking that you are competing against every oth𒈔er team in the league to stay out of the basement. At the end of each NFL week, the team with the lowest cumulative score is chopped out of the league, never to be heard from again. 

When a team is chopped after each week, 𝄹their entire roster enters the waiver wire. Over the course of 18 weeks of the NFL season, one team per week will be chopped from the league until there is just one team left standing, who is the champion of that specific Guillotine League. 

Guillotine Leagues offer free, public leagues as well as the opportunity to create custom, private leagues. With fast and slow-draft options going on now, you🗹 can get more exposure to guillotines than King Louis XVI if that’s what you desire. 

At the end of the day, the ultimate strategy is to stay alive, but several more advanced strategies🎃 can make that plan work. There is much to be do❀ne in the draft, but that’s just the beginning. 

Guillotine League Strategy

Below are some of the general and advanced strategies for competing and succeeding in Guillotine Leagues. to see the full rules ꦕof Guillotine Leagues. 

Stop Thinking About Playing for the Playoffs

All of that analysis about X and Y players having such good matchups during the fantasy playoffs? You don’t care about that. You care about having the highest possible score this wee♒k, and this week only. Assuming your team meets that goal, you will have the opportunity to improve your roster on the waiveꦍr wire from the team that was chopped. 

Other things that really don’t matter as th🦋e season gets started include bye weeks and strength of schedule for your rosters. No team is on bye until at least Week 5, so that is something that can be addressed when the time comes. Loading up all your players on one bye week is certainly not advisable, but if you need a quarterback before Week 7 comes, for example, you will have at least six chances to get one if your team can survive and advance. 

Speaking of adding players, get ready for the absolute Wild Wild West꧑ of waiver wire bidding. 

Be Ready to Spend Loads of FAAB

Each team in a public Guillotine League begins with $1,000 FAAB money to start the year. Many leagues on traditional, pu༺blic sites begin the year with $100, so ever🔥ything is scaled up by a factor of 10 when you’re playing with $1,000. 

However, the amount of money is not the central issue to consider, bꦚut rather the overall strength of your roster compared to your opponent🔴s’ rosters and what they plan to do with their FAAB. Theoretically, Christian McCaffrey and Patrick Mahomes could end up on the waiver wire after Week 1. What do you do in that scenario? 

There are bound to be large overbids on those players, 🍷but you will have to decide for your specific roster if you need that kind of upgrade at their positions, or would your $1,000 better serve you down the road when other team’s rosters have improved because of waiver wire wins. 

This is a Bigger League Than Your Home League

Most traditional home leaguesಞ are 10 or 12-team leagues, with a few playing with as many a🍸s 14 teams. All public Guillotine Leagues start with 18 teams so that there can be one standing after the 18-week season. 

With📖 14 rounds in the draft, that means rosters are going to be thinner than in most home leagues (252 players are taken in a standard Guillotine League, and there are no ki𝔍ckers or defense). In my most recent Guillotine draft, players like Deuce Vaughn and Devontz Walker were drafted in the last round

Consistent Points Rules the Day

Considerဣ two running backs taken after pick 100 by ADP in most fantasy football drafts. Both Brian Robinson (116 ADP) and Blake Corum (118 ADP) go around the same time, but which is better for Guillotine Leagues, at least for the first few weeks of the season? 

Not knowing Blake Corum’s specific role for the Los Angeles Rams puts him aꦉt a distinct disadvantage here. Corum could explode similar to Kyren Williams last year. Or he could be the next Tank Bigsby, we just don’t know. Br💧ian Robinson, however, is a known quantity. He plays on every first and second-down play. He catches a fair number of passes (Guillotine Leagues are PPR scoring. And he had 33 red zone touches in 2023. 

Brian Robinson will offer consistent points on your roster the first few weeks of the season until we see what Blake Corum can and will do. If he turns out to be a no-doubt-about-it starter, th🎶at will hurt, but it’s not the most likely outcome. Play the percentages that will earn you the highest floor of possible points on a weekly basis instead of worrying about the ceiling. That can come when you make it to Week 18. 

Your Last Picks Probably Don’t  Matter

With 252 players taken (all skill players, by the way), most of the players from the last few rounds of your dra𒐪ft won’t be on your roster at the end unless you hit on🔯 a Puka Nacua or similar breakout story. With excellent players entering free agency each week, the last few players on your roster are easy candidates to drop and replace. 

In the first couple of weeks of the season, before rosters really get churning with waiver picks, these late-round players are also unlikely to crack the starting lineup unless you stumbled upon hidden treasure or injury replacements. Just think o𒁃f it as drafting placeholders until better players can acquired and inserted into the weakest spots in your lineup. 

STAY ALIVE!

Picture Captain America talking to the other Avengers before they go off on the Time Heist in Avengers: Endgame. 

“.”

The goal of Guillotine Leagues is to stay alive at all costs. If after Week 3, you’ve lost your best receiver, running back, a𝓰nd quarterback to injury, it might be time to empty the FAAB wallet so you can survive another week. If you consistently find yoursel𓂃f near the chopping block, some adjustments to the lineup or roster might be in order.

Football is a volatile game, so anything can happen on a week-to-week basis, but a bad draft doesn’t necessarily ruin your chances. A whole 🏅team’s worth of players will hit free agency each week and give renewed hope to those teams that are underperforming. 

More than anything: . Don’t set up your team to be able to best compete in Weeks 14-17, they need to compete today💛. Next week is when you can worry about ♍next week. 

Take the 🍸jump into Guillotine Leagues and try out൲ a new format for 2024.