Hey, everyone, it’s Paul Charchian, Director of Guillotine Leagues at Fantasy Life.  

Week 1 is in the books! If you’re drafting a new guillotine league now, you have the advantage of knowing some of the key answers we’ve been wondering about all offseason!

Let’s highlight some of the key revelations we’ve made that will impact your guillotine leagues in every round.

Note: With 17 weeks left in the season, you’ll be drafting leagues with a maximum size of 17. You can play with less if you choose, and your season will end earlier.

Round 1 Revelation - Bijan Robinson is safe!

Throughout the preseason, Falcons offensive coordinator Zach Robinson kept insisting that Tyler Allgeier would remain a sizable factor in his offense. Turns out, that was coachspeak of the highest order.

Bijan Robinson was already going in the middle of the first round of guillotine drafts. His massive utilization over Tyler Allgeier will push him toward the front of the round, despite an overall shaky performance by the Falcons offense in the opener. 

Robinson took 92% (!) of the Falcons snaps, 82% of the Falcons carries, and ran routes on 82% of the team’s passing plays. Those gaudy numbers create a whopping 9.3 Utilization Score on Dwain McFarland’s scoring system.

Round 2 – Tight End Mandatory?

During the preseason, tight ends began being drafted in Round 2. But after a disastrous Week 1, in which almost every “brand name” tight end underperformed by orders of magnitude, will drafters continue to prioritize the position?

The reason to keep taking Sam LaPorta, Travis Kelce, and Trey McBride is that they offer you proven upside that most other tight ends don’t. In the immortal words of Andy Dufresne: “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”  Those guys give you real hope.

The reason to slough tight ends in Round 2 is because there are other proven-great players still on the board who may be lower risk. Maybe the tight end you draft three or four rounds from now isn’t that much worse than LaPorta, Kelce, and McBride.

Round 3 – Buying The Dip?

Several of the wideouts being drafted here are coming off bad Week 1 performances, like Chris Olave, Marvin Harrison, Tank Dell, and Michael Pittman.  Are you buying the dip on those guys?

Olave, Dell, and Pittman have all proven themselves as capable receivers. Their collective flops in Week 1 are probably a mirage.

Harrison is a trickier one to figure out. He struggled against a terrific Buffalo secondary in the opener, which is understandable. The next three weeks promise to be much easier for Harrison, with games against the Rams, Lions, and Commanders.

Proven runners are still available, like Kenneth Walker, Joe Mixon, Josh Jacobs, and Travis Etienne.  If you don’t have a runner yet, snatching one here will be helpful. Looking ahead, you could wait one more round for a runner because some help is still coming.

Round 4 –Good RBs Still Available

Based on what we saw in Week 1, this is the last round to grab a runner who can (fairly/mostly/kinda) reliably perform for your team.  You can find guys like Rhamondre Stevenson, Alvin Kamara, Rachaad White, Aaron Jones, Zack Moss, and Zamir White. 

Stevenson, in particular, looked fantastic in Week 1, getting 80% of the Patriots RB snaps, 71% of the rushing attempts, and a goal-line touchdown. Dwain’s utilization score of 9.2 highlights how dominant Stevenson for to the Patriots offense. He notched 12 (!) avoided tackles in one game! 

White looks a little more dangerous than originally expected due to the emergence of Bucky Irving (more on this later). 

Round 5 – Wideouts Are Thin

It’s only Round 5, and I’m already worried about the wideouts being taken here.  Almost all of them are coming off bad Week 1 performances and many have quarterback issues: Diontae Johnson, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Calvin Ridley, Rome Odunze, and Keenan Allen. 

Despite optimism they’d be much better as sophomores, Bryce Young and Will Levis were simply awful in Week 1.  It’s unclear whether they’re NFL-caliber players. For that matter, the USFL caliber.

Caleb Williams was very inconsistent in his first start but made a couple of nice passes, offering a glimmer of hope. But for Allen and Odunze, I worry that he’s got a long way to go before he can consistently feed three receivers.  

Round 6 – Last Round for QBs?

With so many horrific Week 1 quarterbacking performances, sloughing the position much further than Round 6 feels unnecessarily dangerous. 

In this round, you can pick up a proven solid (but mostly immobile) passer, like Dak Prescott, Trevor Lawrence, Jared Goff, or Tua Tagovailoa.  If you drop much further than the 6th round for your quarterback, you’re looking at players who are likely to be more inconsistent, like Kirk Cousins, Justin Herbert, and Sam Darnold.

I’m trying to give Cousins some grace. It was his first game with a new team, in a new offense. And he was completely ambushed by T.J. Watt and the Steelers’ front four. I’m not sure any other quarterback would have fared much better against the ferocious rush he faced. 

Some people feel that Cousins’ arm strength looked a notch lower, perhaps because of his Achilles injury. That could be real.

 Round 7 – Two intriguing backups

Two of Week 1’s pleasant surprises at running back will need to be taken by Round 7, Bucky Irving and Tank Bigsby. Those guys were going off the board in Rounds 11 and 14 a week ago.

In Tampa, Bucky Irving got a healthy 20 snaps, with 9 rushing attempts, and a gaudy 6.9 yards per carry, helped by a nifty 31-yard run. Rachaad White was heavily used in the passing game, but it’s notable that White’s rushing was lackluster compared to Irving's. Also notable, Irving and White both had two short-yardage carries. Irving may evolve into the goal-line back.

Last year, we didn’t see much of Tank Bigsby after a couple of costly early-season turnovers. Last Sunday, our first look at Bigsby as a sophomore was much more promising. He took 34% of the snaps from starter Travis Etienne, but more importantly, the carry distribution was 50:50, 12 each, with Bigsby netting almost twice as many yards.

Round 8 – Hollywood Bowl

Maybe the most intriguing player in Round 8 is Hollywood Brown. In early, preseason drafts, before his injury, he was going in the fifth round. Now he’s available at a steep discount, while Xavier Worthy’s stock has skyrocketed. 

But Brown could return to the lineup as early as this week, and his playing time could come at the expense of Worthy. Brown isn’t quite as fast as Worthy (nobody is), but Brown has tremendous downfield speed. And Brown has years of training at his position, while Worthy is learning on the job. 

Round 9  - Last Call

Round 9 looks like your last chance to get a quarterback with a pulse, whether it’s your starter or a backup. At this point, they’ve all got warts, but some guys look like plausible starters. Geno Smith needs to overcome a battered offensive line that severely limited him last week.

Kirk Cousins was under siege by T.J. Watt all game and his arm strength looked diminished. Still, he’s thrown touchdowns in 55 of the past 56 games. Gardner Minshew played pretty well in his Las Vegas debut and Antonio Pierce didn’t run the ball nearly as much as expected.

Round 10 – WR2s

At this late stage of the draft, we’re diving for guys who can help in a pinch. The most promising group available in Round 10 are teams’ second wideouts, like Darnell Mooney, Josh Reynolds, Luke McCaffrey, and maybe Josh Downs, if Alec Pierce hasn’t unseated him.

Almost always, those guys see inferior coverage because there’s an alpha receiver who opponents are keying upon. In the right matchups, they’ll have flex-starter ability.