Guillotine League CHOPionship Plays: Josh Allen, James Cook, and more

Matthew Freedman introduces the top plays for Guillotine Leagues^TM CHOPionship rosters during the NFL playoffs…

Super Wild Card Weekend.

The postseason is here.

The pigskin gods are good.

But just because we're now in the playoffs doesn't mean that we need to stop living that fantasy life.

Guillotine Leagues

This season, my favorite fantasy experience was at Guillotine Leagues, where the Fantasy Life content creators all participated in an 18-team league. I finished No. 2, behind the sharp Dwain McFarland.

Congrats to Dwain, obviously.

I mean, he was certainly aided by the fact that in Week 17 I was without QB Jalen Hurts and RB Chuba Hubbard. And it definitely didn't help me that RB De'Von Achane was sabotaged by an offense without QB Tua Tagovailoa. But I'm not bitter.

If Dwain is fine with winning a championship by default, good for him. That's his business. He's the one who must look himself in the mirror every day. Ouch. Especially with that head of hair.

And I haven't mentioned yet that I was without my Round 1 pick—RB Christian McCaffrey—for almost the entire season.

Again, heartfelt congratulations to Dwain on his fake win. Very deserved.

Guillotine Leagues Postseason Contests

At Guillotine Leagues this postseason we are offering two fantasy contest types.

• CHOPionship: Lots of teams—25% of field cut each round.
• Guilloteenie: Five teams—one team cut each round.

To put this in DFS terms, the CHOPionship is a tournament and the Guilloteenie is a cash game, and I think they should be approached as such. 

For the Guilloteenie, your goal is simply to draft a team better than the four others in a miniature league. You don't need to get too wild.

In the CHOPionship, though, you need to beat 25-500 teams to take down the contest and win the grand prize—and let's be clear: That's the goal. In the words of Reese Bobby: "If you ain't first, you're last." And beating 25-plus other teams might necessitate getting a little dangerous.

So that's what this article—the last Freedman's Favorites of the 2024-25 season—is about: Helping you take down the CHOPionship.

In the first half of the article, I'll look at the contest rules and theorize what their implications are for strategy, since in this kind of game the overall perspective will usually determine the pool of players you draw from.

For more CHOPionship rules analysis, check out Jake Nagy's CHOPionship strategy piece. If you're interested in the smaller Guilloteenie, consult Geoff Ulrich and Matt LaMarca's strategy piece. 

In the second half, I'll briefly highlight some players I like (per usual).

Don't miss Paul Charchian's postseason Guillotine Leagues rankings.

Some customary notes.

Updates: After I submit this piece, any changing opinions I have will be reflected in my rankings and my projections (accessible with a FantasyLife+ subscription), which I will update throughout the week.

Scoring & Ordering: All fantasy points are full-PPR scoring unless otherwise stated. Players in separate sections are ordered within position roughly (but probably not precisely) according to my rankings.

Abbreviations: Check out the end of the piece for abbreviations I might use.

Time Stamp: All information and analysis is as of 3 p.m. ET on Monday, Jan. 6. All sports betting odds are based on the consensus lines in our Fantasy Life Odds Page.

Guillotine Leagues CHOPionship Strategy

CHOPionship Rules

I encourage you to review the Guillotine Leagues CHOPionship rules for yourself, but here's a general overview.

• Rosters: 14 players
• Eight Starters: 1 QB, 2 RBs, 2 WRs, 1 TE, 2 FL
• Maximum of Three Players per NFL Team: Massively significant
• Four Rounds: Wild Card, Divisional, Conference Championships, Super Bowl
• Waivers/Free Agency: None—your team entering the contest is the final version
• Selection Process: Choose any players you want
• Cut Process: 25% of initial field cut each week, highest score in Super Bowl wins
• Scoring: Basic PPR
• Roster Locks: Kickoff on game-to-game basis
• Contest Locks: Kickoff of 4:30 p.m. ET Sunday game of Super Wild Card Weekend
• Positional Flexibility: Once a game starts, a player in that game can be moved between positional spots (RB, WR, and TE) and FLEX, but players cannot be moved between starting lineup and bench.

I think that's enough of an overview.

CHOPionship Strategy: Ideal Super Bowl Lineup

Let's start at the end and work our way back to the beginning.

In daily fantasy golf, the goal is always to have six golfers who make it through the cut and play into the weekend. It's similar here. For Super Bowl Sunday, the goal is to have six players in your starting lineup.

So let's think about what that means.

• You can have only one QB on the two Super Bowl teams.
• For the Super Bowl team with a QB, you want at least one pass catcher. For the third player, you can go WR or RB/TE—but only if the RB/TE is a legit producer.
• For the other Super Bowl team, you want the RB and then two pass catchers.
• Regarding pass catchers: WRs tend to outproduce TEs, so you want to skew toward WRs in your overall construction, unless your TEs can put up WR-caliber numbers.
• Super Bowl Lineup: 1 QB, 1 RB, 3 Pass Catchers (WR/TE), 1 FL (Pass Catcher/RB)

CHOPionship Strategy: Selecting the Two Super Bowl Teams

You have three paths before you in attempting to build a six-person starting unit for Super Bowl Sunday.

• Target both No. 1 seeds (Lions, Chiefs)
• Target only one No. 1 seed
• Fade both No. 1 seeds

If you target both the Lions and Chiefs, that strategy is technically viable in that you can stack six players on those teams and still have eight players left to field a starting lineup for Super Wild Card Weekend.

But it's also possible that the strategy of stacking No. 1 seeds will be popular, which means that Lions and Chiefs could have high representation in the field, thereby diminishing the edge you have in the Super Bowl round.

And if that's the case, then you'll want to be sure to get contrarian while stacking those teams. For instance, instead of stacking a QB with his top WRs, maybe you pivot from No. 2 WR to TE or No. 3 WR—if the gap between No. 2 WR and TE/No. 3 WR isn't that large.

Of course, it's possible that the best way to approach this contest is to fade one or both of the No. 1 seeds. Not only could this strategy provide you with leverage via contrarianism if the field is heavy on Lions and Chiefs, but it also would give you more options in the Wild Card round (because you wouldn't have 3-6 players on bye sitting on your bench).

In my opinion, this contest will be won or lost based on the strategy you use regarding the teams you target to make the Super Bowl.

So much depends on your read of the field and how contrarian you believe you want/need to be.

CHOPionship Strategy: Odds to Make the Super Bowl

With our Fantasy Life NFL Futures page, we can see each team's consensus odds to win its conference championship, which I have pulled into tables and then leveraged to calculate each team's vig-removed probability to make the Super Bowl.

Having this data should help you make informed decisions when targeting Super Bowl candidates.

AFC Conference

NFC Conference

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CHOPionship Strategy: Stacking

With 14 players on your roster, you optimally should create four stacks of Super Bowl candidate teams (three players per team) and then add two more unstacked players.

• Ideally, the four teams you stack would be the four Conference Championship teams.
• That means you want to stack two AFC and two NFC teams.
• To avoid having two QBs eligible in the Super Bowl, you will likely want to localize your QB stacks to just one conference (either the AFC or NFC).
• Be sure to look at the postseason bracket and try to avoid stacking teams with a decent chance to play each other before the Conference Championship round.
• The two unstacked players should be strong producers on teams you expect (at least in this construction) not to play in the AFC or NFC Championships.

For the unstacked players, I might lean more toward RBs than WRs or TEs. Because of their projectable usage, RBs tend to have higher floors and less volatility than pass catchers, and I think that matters in a contest in which 25% of the field is eliminated each week.

Also, for the unstacked players my general opinion is that conference affiliation is largely irrelevant, as long as you think both players have a decent chance of giving you two games of production.

CHOPionship Strategy: Roster Construction

With all this in mind, my 14-player roster might look something like this.

• QB (2): QBs for Teams A & B (same conference)
• RB (4): RBs for Teams C & D (same conference), plus RBs for Teams E & F
• WR (4): No. 1 WRs for Teams A, B, C & D
• TE (2): TEs for Teams A, B, C, or D
• FLEX (2): RB or WR for Teams A, B, C, or D

Of course, there can be variations on all of this—and variations can be good, because they might result in contrarian roster builds, which can provide an edge late in the contest.

CHOPionship Strategy: Example Roster

I'm not saying this is a roster I'd actually use … but here's an example of an intriguing roster one could construct.

• QB: Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson
• RB: James Cook, Derrick Henry, Jahmyr Gibbs, Saquon Barkley
• WR: Khalil Shakir, Amon-Ra St. Brown, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith
• TE: Mark Andrews, Sam LaPorta
• Flex: Justin Jefferson, Mike Evans

In this build, I've stacked the Bills, Ravens, Lions, and Eagles—all of whom have a respectively good shot to meet in the AFC and NFC Championships.

I've stacked two QBs from the AFC (Allen and Jackson) so I won't have two eligible QBs in the Super Bowl.

I've stacked both my QBs with RBs, which might end up being a contrarian build (although maybe not).

I've faded one No. 1 seed (the Chiefs) in a small attempt to be somewhat contrarian.

And I've added two unstacked superstud WRs—Jefferson and Evans—who are both favored in the Wild Card round, which gives me a decent chance to get two games of production from them.

I'm not saying that this roster will win it all. I'm saying that this roster is intriguing as a starting point, and it highlights the possibilities for this contest.

Freedman’s Favorite CHOPionship QBs

With QBs, you want to stack guys who have a real chance to make the Super Bowl.

Josh Allen (Bills): He's the probable MVP, he'll have home-field advantage for most of the playoffs, and he can probably beat the Chiefs in Kansas City to make the Super Bowl if he needs to.

Lamar Jackson (Ravens): He's a two-time MVP coming off an MVP-caliber season (No. 1 with a 10.2 AY/A). No one else has his pure combination of passing talent and rushing prowess.

Jared Goff (Lions): He's No. 1 in composite EPA + CPOE (0.189, per RBs Don't Matter) and is on the team with the best odds to make the Super Bowl.

Justin Herbert (Chargers): He will be contrarian, but he's a top-8 NFL QB, and top-8 NFL HC Jim Harbaugh has a penchant for making conference championships.

Freedman’s Favorite CHOPionship RBs

At RB, you're looking for a combination of stacking options and unstacked producers.

Jahmyr Gibbs (Lions): No. 2 RB David Montgomery (knee) at first was expcted to miss most (if not all) of the playoffs, but now HC Dan Campbell said Monty could play in the Divisional Round. In Gibbs' nine games in which Montgomery has been either out or limited to no more than 30% of the snaps, he has 1,170 yards and 12 TDs from scrimmage.

James Cook (Bills): He has a paltry 5.4 Utilization Score since the Week 12 bye (per our industry-leading Fantasy Life Utilization Report), but he still finished the year with 1,267 total yards and a studly 18 TDs despite losing goal-line carries to QB Josh Allen. 

Bucky Irving (Buccaneers): He exited Week 14 early with hip and back injuries, but since the Week 11 bye Irving has 816 yards and 4 TDs in his six full games.

Josh Jacobs (Packers): I have the Packers as the No. 6 team in my power ratings, and their divisional familiarity with the Lions gives them an elevated chance to upset them on the way to the Super Bowl, but they'll likely be unpopular in the CHOPionship because they're road dogs of more than a field goal in the Wild Card round. Jacobs is an intriguing contrarian option, given that he had an NFL-high 22 goal-line carries this season. 

Freedman’s Favorite CHOPionship WRs

At WR (as is the case with RB), you're again looking for a combination of stacking options and unstacked producers.

Puka Nacua (Rams): It's conceivable for a healthy Rams team to make it to the NFC Championship—maybe even the Super Bowl—but they almost certainly won't be valued that way in this contest. Nacua should benefit from sitting out last week, and he has 67-838-3 receiving on 89 targets with 8-34-1 rushing in his eight full games since returning from injury.

A.J. Brown (Eagles): He should be rested after not playing in Week 18, and he's No. 1 in the league with a 50% share of air yards and 88% WOPR.

"WOPR" stands for "weighted opportunity rating," and it measures the overall quality of a player's aerial role in his offense by considering his share of targets and air yards.

Khalil Shakir (Bills): He's the No. 1 WR on a team with strong odds to play in the AFC Championship, and in his nine full games since returning from injury he has a 27% target rate and 25% target share.

Ladd McConkey (Chargers): He's an ideal stacking partner with QB Justin Herbert in a contrarian build. In his four games since returning from injury, he has 24-334-4 receiving on 31 targets—and over his past eight games he has 47-709-3 receiving on 60 targets. 

Freedman’s Favorite CHOPionship TEs

At TE, you are looking for guys to stack (probably with your QBs) on Super Bowl contenders.

Mark Andrews (Ravens): He started the season slowly (a scoreless 65 yards on 9 targets in Weeks 1-4), but he closed the season with 49-608-11 receiving on 60 targets in 13 games after Week 5.

Sam LaPorta (Lions): He has 35-360-4 receiving on 51 targets in seven games since returning from injury, and over the past month he has averaged 8 targets per game. I love the idea of LaPorta in Lions stacks with or without QB Jared Goff.

Dallas Goedert (Eagles): If the Eagles make the Super Bowl, Goedert will almost certainly provide leverage against RB Saquon Barkley and WRs A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith.

Abbreviations

• Fantasy Points per Game (FPPG)
• Against the Spread (ATS)
• Over/Under (O/U)
• Team Total (TT)
• Moneyline (ML)
• Return on Investment (ROI)
• Adjusted Yards per Attempt (AY/A)
• Expected Points Added (EPA)
• Success Rate (SR)
• Completion Percentage Over Expected (CPOE)
• Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA)
• AirYAC (Air Yards + Yards After Catch)
• Weighted Opportunity Rating (WOPR)
• Average Depth of Target (aDOT)
• Short Down and Distance (SDD)
• Long Down and Distance (LDD)
• Dropback Over Expected (DBOE)