Quarterbacks To Upgrade in Guillotine Leagues™: Boost Matthew Stafford in 2025

Hey everyone, it's Charch here, the foremost expert in Guillotine Leagues™, the newest, hottest way to play fantasy football. Drafts are deep, strategic, and a little exotic for the uninitiated.

Like every fantasy league, winning Guillotine Leagues™ starts on draft day. You can definitely recover from a bad draft more easily in a Guillotine Leagues™—after all, you can simply spend your way to a better roster. But, a great draft means that you don't have to spend money early, giving you a major late-season advantage.

So, let's take a look at the different decisions I'd make at the quarterback position with four players who I value higher in Guillotine Leagues™ than in fantasy.

QB Upgrades in Guillotine Leagues™ for 2025

Jalen Hurts - Eagles

- 11 spots higher than standard league consensus

The tush push is back for 2025, and that's a Konami code to Guillotine Leagues™ greatness. His rushing touchdowns give Hurts both an ultra-high floor and a top-heavy ceiling. In 18 full games last year, including playoffs, Hurts had zero chop-worthy games. Zero.

Words don't adequately express how dominating he was in Guillotine Leagues™, carrying teams forward every week. Excepting Week 14, when he got knocked out in the first quarter, Hurts never finished a game below QB19 all year. And he finished as a top-four fantasy quarterback seven different times.

The Eagles are returning almost the exact same offense as last year, with every key contributor returning.

Dak Prescott - Cowboys

- 16 spots over consensus

I like the idea of buying low on Dak Prescott in Guillotine Leagues™. The addition of George Pickens is a huge bonus for a team that desperately needed a second viable target. New head coach Brian Schottenheimer didn't wow anyone, but having served as the Cowboys OC for two years, he knows Prescott.

Schotty probably already knows his running game will provide very few successes, and I expect a very pass-heavy approach. Dallas' playmakers are in the passing game, and he'll lean into it. Last year, the Cowboys had the third-most passing plays, 37 per game, despite starting Cooper Rush for half the year.

Last year, through his seven healthy games, Prescott had the 13th-best chop rate among starting quarterbacks. Not bad!

Bo Nix - Broncos

- 13 spots over consensus

I spend a lot of time highlighting the key differences between Guillotine Leagues™ and fantasy. But there's one thing that's similar: Dual-threat quarterbacks are a godsend, helping you in two ways. First, they have a high floor—hyper-critical in Guillotine Leagues™—because even bad passing days can be overcome via some nimble running. And vice versa. And, of course, when the rushing and passing both hit, it's a bonanza that can overcome a dud game from someone else on your roster.

Last year, after a rough opening month, Nix was incredibly safe, topping 14 fantasy points in 11 of 13 games—his two duds were both blowout wins, oddly. He also topped 20 fantasy points seven times in that stretch.

Nix figures to get better as a sophomore, and another year of seasoning will help his young receivers like Marvin Mims, Devaughn Vele, and Troy Franklin. And the addition of Evan Engram should prove highly fruitful.

J.J. McCarthy - Vikings

- 16 spots over consensus

Normally, I'd urge Guillotine Leagues™ players to avoid first-year starting quarterbacks, even non-rookies, who had the opportunity to learn from the bench. But in the entire history of the league, has any first-year starting quarterback dropped into a better spot than J.J. McCarthy? He'll be throwing passes to Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hockenson, and Aaron Jones. His head coach has produced career-best results from Kirk Cousins, Nick Mullens, Josh Dobbs, and Sam Darnold. As a first-year starter, McCarthy will almost certainly see less volume than Darnold, who finished last year as QB11.

But McCarthy can make up for that with his legs—a dramatically under-discussed aspect of his game. In his last two years at Michigan, he ran 134 times for 500 yards and 8 touchdowns. In the past, Kevin O'Connell hasn't asked his quarterbacks to run. But other than Dobbs, they couldn't run. McCarthy's mobility could open up O'Connell's offense in a way we've never seen.

Matthew Stafford - Rams

- 18 spots over consensus

With a significant talent upgrade from Cooper Kupp to Davante Adams, Stafford should be Guillotine Leagues™ viable for the early part of the season, allowing you to save some draft capital (and FAAB for a few weeks). If you're dismissing Stafford's meager 2024 fantasy finish, QB19 across the full season, remember he was missing Kupp and Puka Nacua for the first third of the season. Once those guys returned healthy, from Week 8 forward, including the playoffs, Stafford averaged 242 passing yards (QB13 per game) and 1.8 touchdowns (QB6) across a full season.

He's prone to some clunker games, in part because Kyren Williams doesn't catch, and sometimes Williams hoards LA's scoring. But despite that, 21 other quarterbacks had a higher chop rate than Stafford last year.