I got chopped yesterday. My first ever Guillotine League elimination, executed by my best friend. I needed a heroic effort from Rashid Shaheed and nearly got it! I thought maybe Shaheed had done enough to save me. And then I received the following text in the group chat:

Gideon is my brother; he was the first one out. If you're a longtime FFT Newsletter reader, you might remember me saying this at the outset of taking over as the new author:

"I invite you to consider approaching Fantasy football through a per-route lens. It's not just yards per route run; there's more! We have access to all sorts of awesome per-route data -- targets per route run, yards per route run, and even first downs per route run -- I believe that this information is the next wave of improving Fantasy football analysis, and it would be my honor and joy to help you learn more about how to apply it and accomplish all of your wildest Fantasy football dreams.

I have been using per-route data to make my Fantasy football dreams (basically just making sure that my little brother never finishes above me in the standings; he talks way too much trash for me to let that happen) come true for the past six years, and this information has helped me to consistently identify values in Fantasy football."

Sure, I went out with, by far, the most remaining FAAB. I blew it. I completely fumbled the bag. I got barely outbid on Justin Jefferson by my buddy Nate, even though I had more than double the remaining FAAB that he had, and that was the difference in getting chopped or not. I wasn't aggressive enough, and now I'm a dead man, and my friends are looting my pockets.

But I did finish ahead of Gideon in the standings. Again. Be better, brother! (He drafted CMC at the 1.01; this really isn't fair at all) No excuses, though!

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, consider checking out this podcast that Dan Schneier and I recorded with Matthew Berry! My first taste of Guillotine action has been super fun. Even though I was eliminated, it was a fun ride. And we can do it all over again! You can start a new league at any time!

Alrighty, let's look at this week's waiver wire. Maybe you aren't feeling quite as happy-go-lucky as I am about your Fantasy football endeavors after spending all of your hard-earned FAAB only to be rewarded with 4 PPR points from Dontayvion Wicks. Maybe you're in a super serious high-dollar buy-in league where you can't simply "start a new league." Does that change anything about your Week 6 waiver wire approach?

Whatever situation you find yourself in heading into Week 6, all that we can do is focus on what's in front of us. Learn from the past, sure. I had a feeling that I was being too conservative when I placed my bid on Justin Jefferson last week, and I would have been better served trusting that intuition. I can reflect on that and make an effort to learn from it. Dwelling on it does me no good, though. It's time to look forward. What can we do from here? How can we best use our remaining time and resources?

My brother and I have had an absolutely brutal run-out in a couple of our co-managed Dynasty leagues. After looking around the league and making note of how many competitive teams there were, we made the decision to pack up our bags and prepare for the long road ahead. We're rebuilding. I would really prefer not to bail on a season after just five weeks, but so much of the circumstances around those teams have been out of our control. Oh well. There's no use in being frustrated about it. With a clear new direction, we can maximize our resources and be ready for the next fight.

In another league, even though we've had a brutal 2-8 start (we're 2-2 against the league median and 0-4 in head-to-head matchups), we are still convinced that we can compete. We've evaluated our current circumstances and looked ahead and see a real outcome where we compete for a championship in 2024. And that's all that matters, the fact that we have just two wins and feel like hard-luck losers does not matter. The fact that I took a swing and miss on Bo Melton as a waiver wire fill-in does not matter. Curtis Samuel's disappointing Week 5 doesn't matter. What matters is that we still have most of our FAAB, we have a roster that is mostly healthy, and we have multiple future rookie draft picks that we can use to acquire more assets. What can we do from here?

For those of you who are Dontayvion Wicks investors, I watched all of his routes from Week 5. It could have been a much bigger Fantasy performance. And if he gets more starts in the future, I'd expect much bigger Fantasy performances. We don't know when Christian Watson will be back, so feel free to drop Wicks if you believe there's a player available who better helps your team. Personally, I want to hold Wicks if at all possible. Week 5 was a bottom-range of outcomes game for him. It happens. Bad games happen to literally every player, especially at the wide receiver position.

I created a thread detailing what I saw from Wicks in Week 5 if you wanna watch that.

Daniel Jones - He's honestly playing well, and next up is a matchup against the Bengals defense. I have Jones ranked as a top-15 Fantasy QB for Week 6!

Drake Maye - It might finally be time. I've been stashing him in Super Flex leagues all year. I drafted him as early as Round 6 in Super Flex leagues for some context as to how high I am on Maye's Fantasy prospects. Even in 1QB leagues, if you have deep benches and are looking for a high-upside stash, maybe Maye makes sense!

It's really important to stay ahead on the waiver wire whenever possible. Both Tank Bigsby and Tyrone Tracy were featured as stashes in this space in each of the past two weeks. Now, you're probably going to have to spend a pretty penny to acquire either of those two.

Of the two, the rookie would be my priority. Bigsby has played hilariously well in Year 2, but Travis Etienne still exists. I'd be really surprised if Bigsby ever plays more than 40-50% of the snaps with Etienne healthy. The same might be true about Tracy with Devin Singletary. New York's veteran RB is already currently contending with a groin injury. His team hasn't invested nearly as much into him as Etienne's has. And the Giants are more desperate for play-makers than the Jaguars. Those are the reasons why I'm more optimistic about Tracy's outlook. Also, Tracy might possess dual-threat upside as a rusher and receiver that is unique. His rookie prospect profile was really cool .

You can watch all of Tracy's Week 5 rushes here!

Blake Corum - For the first time all season, he was clearly ahead of Ronnie Rivers. The Rams have weathered the storm and reached the Week 6 bye. Kyren Williams has taken a beating to get L.A. to this point. Maybe Corum gets more work out of the bye to help make the stretch run more manageable for Kyren. Maybe Cooper Kupp and/or Puka Nacua will return to health soon, and maybe this offense ends up being alright after all!

Ray Davis - There hasn't been any usage change that suggests Fantasy output might be imminent, I simply continue to view Davis as one of the best RB stashes in all of Fantasy.

Emanuel Wilson - If Josh Jacobs were to suffer an injury, this is the next man up, and the Packers have been giving him some work as is. With MarShawn Lloyd on the IR, Wilson is worth rostering if you have a spot for a speculative lottery ticket type of stash.

Isaac Guerendo - This is the clear fill-in if Mason were to go down.

Carson Steele - The Chiefs are still giving him opportunities, and I'm not sure how long we can expect Kareem Hunt's body to hold up under the wear and tear that comes with 25+ touches. Going from (presumably) little contact to roughly 100 hits from defenders in the span of just one month seems like a lot. I just turned 30 this year, and I also played a little bit of running back (middle school), so I can officially speak with some wisdom and experience in this regard. Our bodies are finite!

JuJu Smith-Schuster - He actually wasn't the top read for Kansas City in Week 5. Surprisingly, Xavier Worthy was. I would have guessed that Travis Kelce was.

The Chiefs did try to get Worthy going in this game. Kansas City opened the game with tons of multiple tight end sets. Kelce was dominating the targets early on, but then we saw Kansas City mix in multiple plays involving Worthy in motion at the snap of the ball. The timing just wasn't quite there between Worthy and Mahomes. On one crosser, Mahomes threw it behind Worthy and appeared to signal to his receiver to "sit down" and find the hole in the zone.

JuJu did most of his damage in the second half and looked like a reliable weapon (other than the uncharacteristic end-zone drop that led to an interception). He did his best to make up for the interception with a 50-yard catch-and-run on the following drive.

I wouldn't break the bank for Smith-Schuster. It was super fun to see the two veteran former Chiefs go for 100+ yards in their second go-round in Kansas City, but I'm not sure how indicative it is of what we can expect going forward.

Jalen Tolbert - We're seeing some interesting signals from Tolbert lately! He's still only rostered in 10% of CBS leagues.

Juwan Johnson - His role keeps increasing! It was Foster Moreau who found the end zone, but Johnson saw five targets and registered a 68% route participation in Week 5.

Erick All - If you want a deep-league TE with sleeper upside, All might just be him. The below tweet is one that I made prior to Week 5. I need to update you on his role, though. It doesn't matter much how great his per-route production is if All only gets 10-ish routes per week.

In Week 6, All ran a route on 16 of Cincinnati's 43 dropbacks. Even with a top-three yard-per-route-run rate at the TE position, 16 routes ain't enough!

If you did not catch the Beyond the Box Score podcast episode on FFT that I record with Adam Aizer and Dan Schneier every Monday, you can listen to that here!

Another reminder: each Friday, we'll go 'In The Lab' in this space:

If you want to be part of Friday's newsletter post, feel free to join us in the lab! Fill out this google form, and then check back on Friday!

I'll sort these rankings into tiers in the Thursday update. Check back on Thursday if you want tiers.

("ECR" = expert consensus rank. These images show my rankings and how they compare to consensus, courtesy of FantasyPros)

If you find yourself using any of the QBs beyond this point, I will plead with you to at least consider why you're engaging in such behavior.

I'll sort these rankings into tiers in the Thursday update. Check back on Thursday if you want tiers.

("ECR" = expert consensus rank. These images show my rankings and how they compare to consensus, courtesy of FantasyPros)

I'll sort these rankings into tiers in the Thursday update. Check back on Thursday if you want tiers.

("ECR" = expert consensus rank. These images show my rankings and how they compare to consensus, courtesy of FantasyPros)

I'll sort these rankings into tiers in the Thursday update. Check back on Thursday if you want tiers.

("ECR" = expert consensus rank. These images show my rankings and how they compare to consensus, courtesy of FantasyPros)

If you have any feedback on the newsletter, feel free to send it my way! Thank you for reading! And please, do check out Beyond the Boxscore on FFT! Adam, Dan, and I put a lot of work into that podcast project and aim to make it fun and accessible for any level of NFL fan!