We’re at the halfway point, guillotine leaguers! Heads have been chopped in your league nine times. 

*Cue the “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” sound bite* 

Nine times? Nine times.

Nine teams, including yours, remain. If not, go join another guillotine league! New leagues are forming every day.

We’re reaching the point in the guillotine league season where everyone’s rosters are stacked. If you’ve been saving your FAAB, start spending on the talented rosters that are getting cut each week. Charch has begun identifying endgame players in his weekly waiver wire columns, and we’re doing the same in our weekly mailbag.

If you blew all your FAAB but are still hanging on, we’re here every week to help identify cheap, high-floor, replacement-level options to help you keep your head. With nine teams remaining, ground rules are that quarterbacks and tight ends will be outside the top nine, and running backs and wide receivers outside the top 18 in rostership. We’re also identifying underperforming but highly rostered flex position players you can drop in favor of a higher upside option.

Quarterbacks

Last week:

  • Sam Darnold: 19.00 points — hit, and Darnold is a top-nine play in Jacksonville this week.
  • Bo Nix: 17.72 points — hit, thanks to… a receiving touchdown? I’d steer clear as the Broncos travel to Kansas City to face Steve Spagnuolo’s defense for the first time in Nix’s young career.

Week 10:

Brock Purdy at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (62.8% owned)

If Brock Purdy was chopped during his bye week or is otherwise being forgotten on waivers, go scoop him up immediately. He has a matchup-based high floor this week against Tampa Bay — the single-easiest matchup for fantasy passers. He also is QB8 on a points per game basis, so he brings a built-in high floor and can be a rotational piece for the endgame. Oh, and he’s potentially getting both Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel back this week.

Aaron Rodgers at Arizona Cardinals (25.6% owned)

Other than the looming Week 12 bye, Aaron Rodgers is sitting in the most favorable portion of his schedule, and it seems like he and the Jets’ offense began to put a little something together in the second half last Thursday. Rodgers has increased his fantasy output in every game since the Jets acquired Davante Adams. He’s scored 17 or more points in three of his last four, and all but two opposing passers have cleared that mark against Arizona.

Bonus Quarterback Alert:

If you’re truly down this bad (you shouldn’t be with nine teams left), Daniel Jones is coming off his best fantasy outing of the season, is available in over 90% of leagues, and is traveling to Germany to face a Panthers defense that allows the fifth-most fantasy points to opposing passers.

Running Backs

Last week:

  • Alexander Mattison: 3.60 points — brutal miss, and Mattison can be dropped during the bye week.
  • Tyrone Tracy: 7.90 points — miss, but if you survived, Tracy gets the Panthers this week. Over the last five weeks, Carolina is allowing the most fantasy points per game to opposing runners. He’s still available in over a third of leagues.

Week 10:

Outside of Tracy, there are no widely available running backs that I can recommend starting in good conscience. By this point, you should have at least two of the top 20 or so runners plugged into your lineup weekly. Rather than rostering a middling player, scoop up some of the MVCs, or Most Valuable Handcuffs. The following players have the combination of talent and ecosystem that would propel them to league-winning status in the event of an injury to the starter: Blake Corum, Braelon Allen, Ray Davis, and Kimani Vidal.

Thank You for Your Service:

I may have been a week early on Austin Ekeler and Rico Dowdle thanks to factors having nothing to do with either of them, but I still don’t see them as endgame players. You can still hang on to them for now, though. All of the Jacksonville runners — Travis Etienne, Tank Bigsby, and D’Ernest Johnson — can be dropped since their utilization is so unpredictable week to week.

Wide Receivers

Last week:

  • Josh Downs: 12.00 points — he didn’t get you chopped, but he didn’t propel you up the leaderboard, either. I’m still comfortable starting Downs against a Bills defense that is better against boundary receivers than slot guys.
  • Cedric Tillman: 19.50 points — hit, but it was ugly. Tillman is still a starting option post-bye, but continue to be wary of a potential Jameis Winston benching.

Week 10:

DeAndre Hopkins vs. Denver Broncos (63.6% owned)

DeAndre Hopkins is the WR1 in Kansas City moving forward, even when JuJu Smith-Schuster returns to the lineup. We saw how lucrative that role was for Rashee Rice earlier in the season, and Hopkins proved it again Monday night. Hopkins is a potential endgame player, but he’ll need to improve upon last week’s 69% route participation to reach that status. 

This week he gets a Broncos defense that was formerly thought to be impregnable, but Zay Flowers broke down that door with a 5-127-2 outing last week. That’ll likely end up as an outlier performance against this unit, but you have to roll with a player of Hopkins’ caliber off a Utilization Score of 8.8.

Jauan Jennings at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (54.0% owned)

Remember Jauan Jennings? He hasn’t played since Week 6 due to a lingering hip injury but is expected to return to the 49ers starting lineup this week in Tampa, potentially alongside both Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel. There’s the old saying we love in fantasy football: A rising tide lifts all boats, and I see that being the case here. 

Jennings won’t be putting up the 46.50 points he did in Week 3 when he was asked to singlehandedly carry the offense, but the Brandon Aiyuk role is still a valuable one. Thanks to his blocking prowess, Jennings will be on the field more than Ricky Pearsall and could see six or seven targets against a Bucs defense that has allowed the most fantasy points per game to opposing wideouts over the last five weeks.

Bonus Wide Receiver Alert

I generally try to only start good football players, and Andrei Iosivas is frankly not a very good wide receiver. He’s a poor separator and his hands aren’t all that great, but a matchup with the Ravens seems to alleviate such issues for most wideouts. He’s a desperation start with Tee Higgins expected to miss another game due to the short week.

Thank You for Your Service

I am once again asking you to drop Jordan Addison, Keenan Allen, and Wan’Dale Robinson. Sunday night was the final nail in Michael Pittman’s coffin for me. Chris Olave should be dropped the second it’s announced he’ll miss multiple games with his most recent concussion. Xavier Worthy and Keon Coleman are too unreliable as rookie producers.

I know: I was wrong about Courtland Sutton last week, but his matchup in Kansas City this week is brutal. I was even more wrong about Jaxon Smith-Njigba. I don’t think anyone expected this. Hold both if you still have them.

I’m also holding on to Jaylen Waddle and Diontae Johnson for a smidge longer in the event they get it figured out.

Tight Ends

Last week:

  • Zach Ertz: 1.50 points — miss in a brutal game script. Washington faces better game scripts the next two weeks, but I’d be nervous about going with Ertz again.

Week 10:

Taysom Hill vs. Atlanta Falcons (13.2% owned)

The Saints are an incredibly broken franchise (sigh), but I foresee a New Boss Boost under interim head coach Darren Rizzi at home against their most hated rival. Taysom Hill especially hates the Falcons. He’s eclipsed 10 fantasy points in five of his last six games against Atlanta dating back to 2021. Coming off a season-high fantasy output and with Chris Olave expected to miss this game, you could do worse in a desperate tight end spot.

Mike Gesicki at Baltimore Ravens (9.9% owned)

Mike Gesicki’s per-game output in four games without Tee Higgins: 6 catches for 71 yards on 7 targets, and he just added his first two scores of the season last week. The Bengals get the Ravens on a short week, so it’s likely Higgins misses this one as well. 

The Ravens’ pass defense is arguably the league’s worst; they’ve struggled defending both tight ends and wideouts this year. Gesicki is a hybrid of both and is absolutely an option for your starting lineup this week. He also holds some value further down the road as well with fellow tight end Erick All suffering a season-ending injury last week.

Bonus Tight End Alert

If you’re down bad, Grant Calcaterra continues to run 80% or more of the Eagles’ routes in Dallas Goedert’s absence. He has scored at least 8.0 fantasy points in three of four — there is no ceiling to be found here, though.

If you end up starting all three of Daniel Jones, Andrei Iosivas, and Grant Calcaterra in your guillotine league this week, take a screenshot and tag me on Twitter/X @jakenagy98.