Guillotine League, Week 16: Championship

I’ve made it to the championship week! And I’m in good position, having a better team than my opponent,  though not as dominant as it would have been if I hadn’t made a few missteps along the way. Looking forward to the weekend and, hopefully, a championship in this winner-take-all league.

Recap

Last week I finally finished with the most points. It helped to only have two other teams. I got 175.9. The second place team – my opponent this week – got 129.2. My outstanding players were Hopkins with 39, Gurley with 34.4, and Mixon with 27. Disappointers were Roethlisberger with 13.1, Barkley with 9.6, Michael Thomas with 11.9, Kelce with 13.1, and Smith-Schuster with 8. Players I left on the bench included Dalvin Cook with 29.3 and Davante Adams with 21.9.

Advertisement

Guillotine League Week 15: Semifinals

In this series, I track weekly progress in my guillotine league. For the main post, covering the league’s details and my overall Bid Low, Bid Late strategy, click here.

Three teams are left. It is the first week in which all the teams are really good. For this week and next, it feels like any team can get eliminated, even one that is much better on paper than the others. I picked up a few players, swapped out my quarterback, and feel ready.

Last week I finished second with 181.8 points. Luckily,  I decided to start Smith-Schuster over David Johnson, as I wrote about last week. I’m in the final three teams with the highest projected score on ESPN in the last several weeks, but I don’t think I have ever finished first overall on any given week. I’ll need to hit this milestone next week if I am going to win this thing, which I still think is more likely than not.

Guillotine League Week 14: Quarterfinals

In this series, I track weekly progress in my guillotine league. For the main post, covering the league’s details and my overall Bid Low, Bid Late strategy, click here.

Quick write-up this time because I’ve been sick and because it’s not been that interesting of a week.

I scored 190.1 points in Week 13 but only finished second. One team got 193.8. The others were significantly behind at 137.2 and 144.1. I was right to subtitle last week’s article “David Johnson Dragging Me Down”. He scored 8.2 points, and Newton also disappointed with 15.3. On the other hand, Kelce scored 38.8 and  Gurley got 31.5.

My Week 13 Lineup

QB: Cam Newton 15.3
RB: Saquon Barkley 17.6
RB: Todd Gurley 31.5
WR: Adam Thielen 13.8
WR: DeAndre Hopkins 16.1
TE: Travis Kelce 38.8
Flex: David Johnson 8.2
Flex: Ezekiel Elliott 25.5
Flex: Davante Adams 23.3

Total: 190.1

Bench: Gronk, Edelman, Michel, D. Cook, Boyd, Ertz, Evans, Ekeler, James White, Ebron

The Chop

This will be the last week in which no really exciting players are dropped to waivers. The top dropped players were: Robert Woods, Brees, Juju, Brandin Cooks, and Mixon. Other than Brees, I think these are all top-19 options but not starters in Week 16.

Starting the waiver period with a 160-40 FAAB advantage, I bid low both because I don’t think any of these players are sure Week 16 starters, and to preserve a FAAB advantage. I got Woods for $11, Juju for $8, Mixon for $7 and Cooks for $6, a total of $32. My opponent spent $10 on Brees and $5 on Jaylen Samuels. My FAAB advantage increased as a result, from a 4:1 to more than a 5:1 advantage at 127 – 25.

Deflation

Guillotine league deflation report: Robert Woods $250 Week 5, $11 Week 14. Juju Smith-Schuster $62 Week 9, $8 Week 14. That’s about a 30% linearized deflation rate.

— FanMarks (@FanMarks1) December 8, 2018

Outlook

My rest of season outlook has improved due to a series of misfortunes befalling my strongest opponent. He had Kareem Hunt and Emmanuel Sanders on his team, both of whom are out for the season. He also has James Conner, who may be out for multiple games, and OBJ, who is out for this week at least. Despite having Mahomes, McCaffrey, Brown and Lindsay, he is at risk of not surviving the week.

My outlook this week is fine. My team is better than the others, and the only cause of loss would be bad luck, which of course can’t be controlled for. The fewer teams left, the more chance that I’m the team with the outlying bad luck performance.

ESPN gives my team the highest projection at 184.6. No other team is close. The other three teams are at 168.5, 139.4, and 126.1.

The survival calculator says I have a 99.8% chance of surviving, assuming the ESPN projected team points as means, and assuming a standard deviation of 15.

Starting Lineup

My starting lineup will probably look like this.

QB: Cam Newton
RB: Saquon Barkley
RB: Todd Gurley
WR: Adam Thielen
WR: DeAndre Hopkins
TE: Travis Kelce
FLEX: David Johnson
FLEX: Ezekiel Elliott
FLEX: Davante Adams

I might start Juju in place of the inconsistent David Johnson. Johnson is projected higher by ESPN but Juju’s Oakland matchup looks mighty tempting.

Good luck to all who have survived to this point!

 

Guillotine League, Week 13: David Johnson Dragging Me Down

In this series, I track weekly progress in my guillotine league. For the main post, covering the league’s details and my overall Bid Low, Bid Late strategy, click here.

It’s a couple of weeks into my league’s two-player endgame, and my team is showing some improvement. Last week I reported that I successfully bid on Gurley and Thielen. This week I loaded up on some more players, most notably Zeke Elliott, Davante Adams and Zach Ertz. As the title of this article boasts, David Johnson, who I added three weeks ago as my second starter after Travis Kelce, is dragging me down, being the lowest-projected starter on my team at 18.2.

Am I bragging? Well, yes! But I’m also offering a testimonial to the success of the strategy that I’ve been writing about on this site. By spending conservatively in the first ten weeks of the season, I’ve been able to add, since Johnson: Saquon, Hopkins, Gurley, Thielen, Zeke, Adams, Ertz, and Evans, while preserving a 160-40 FAAB advantage over the only other player in my league to have any FAAB.