Week 7 Guillotine Leagues™️ Strategy: Time to Sit Travis Hunter?
Matt LaMarca and Paul Charchian join forces to talk Week 7 Start/Sit strategy for Guillotine Leagues, including players like David Montgomery and Travis Hunter.
We’ve officially made it through the first third of the NFL regular season. For standard Guillotine Leagues™️, that means we’ve made it to the point where 12 teams are remaining. Rosters are a bit deeper, but we’re still quite a ways from every team being a juggernaut.
Unfortunately, the league simply is not cooperating from an injury standpoint. We had another massive injury last week, with Puka Nacua going down with an ankle sprain. The Rams are on bye in Week 8 and playing overseas in Week 7 where he's already been ruled out, so fantasy players will be without the No. 1 WR for the next two weeks. Hopefully no longer
Nacua wasn’t alone. Garrett Wilson is also expected to miss some time after going down with a knee injury in Week 6. Both players were among the three most-chopped players in Week 6, so how to approach them on the waiver wire will be a major question mark in most leagues.
That said, having one of those players on your team wasn’t exactly a death sentence. Nacua’s chop rate was still under 20%, so you could’ve survived with smart roster decisions across the rest of your lineup.
That’s the focus of this piece each week. We’re going to highlight a few players who carry risk in Guillotine Leagues and highlight a few potential alternatives. These guys might be a few spots lower in our collective Week 7 rankings, but what they lack in upside they make up for in safety. Paul Charchian will also weigh in with his thoughts on my selections.
Let’s dive in!
Week 7 Guillotine Leagues Start/Sit Strategy
Sit: David Montgomery vs. Buccaneers
David Montgomery has one of the most interesting roles in fantasy. He’s the clear No. 2 running back in Detroit, which would normally be a deal-breaker. However, the Lions have one of the best offenses in football, and they love to run the ball. They have the fourth-highest run rate in football this season, so there is typically enough work to go around for Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs. Add in the fact that the Lions have 8 rushing touchdowns this season (third-most in the league), and both Gibbs and Montgomery are viable starters most weeks.
However, Montgomery’s utilization was way down in Week 6. He was on the field for just 30% of the team’s snaps, and he handled just 18% of the designed rushing attempts. His 34 UR Score was easily his worst mark of the season, and he finished with just 4 carries for 24 yards. If not for 2 catches and a season-high 37 receiving yards, he would’ve been a massive disappointment vs. a soft Chiefs’ run defense.
Montgomery doesn’t typically have the receiving workload to fall back on, so he needs to be more involved as a runner to consistently return value. That’s far from a guarantee vs. the Buccaneers. They have an elite run defense, ranking first in the league in rush defense EPA through the first six weeks. They’re allowing the fifth-fewest yards per carry and rushing yards per game, so it’s a brutal spot for a between-the-tackles grinder like Montgomery.
We’ve already seen Montgomery in one brutal matchup this season, and it was not pretty. He had 9 carries and 12 rushing yards in the team’s Week 4 matchup vs. the Browns, and that was a game that the Lions were comfortably in control of. The Buccaneers are much more dangerous on the offensive end, so the game script might not be nearly as favorable. Add it all up, and Montgomery has a cavernous floor in this spot.
Charch says: You have to choose your spots for Monty very carefully, and this isn’t one of them. The Vita Vea-led Buccaneers run defense is terrific, as Matt pointed out above. Heck, even starting running backs struggle to be fantasy relevant against Tampa. Opposing No. 2 runners are averaging just 20 rushing yards and 0.15 touchdowns per game against the Bucs.
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Start: TreVeyon Henderson at Titans
They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for different results. TreVeyon Henderson has been driving fantasy owners insane all season.
It appeared as though things were looking up for Henderson heading into last week. Rhamondre Stevenson had yet another fumble, while Antonio Gibson went down with a season-ending injury. The coast was clear for Henderson to take on a bigger workload in a solid matchup vs. the Saints.
That said, Henderson’s workload actually shrank in that contest. His snap share dipped from 48% in Week 5 to just 29% last week, while his 38 UR Score was his worst mark since Week 2. Meanwhile, Stevenson played on 71% of the snaps, including nearly all of the high-value short-yardage and long-down-and-distance ones. It’s looking like the Henderson breakout may not happen this year.
Keeping Henderson on the pine is completely reasonable at this point, but I’m going to the well one more time. The matchup vs. the Titans is absolutely elite. They’re 24th in the league in rush defense EPA, and opposing RBs typically get plenty of volume against them. As a result, they’re allowing the fourth-most PPR points per game to the position.
Even as the road team, the Patriots are listed as 7.0-point favorites in this matchup. There could be enough volume for Stevenson and Henderson to each get there in this contest, so I’ll take my chances with the rookie one final time.
Charch Says: The matchup is certainly favorable for Henderson, but that’s the only reason to start him. The Patriots' run blocking is dreadful. As I watched the Patriots last week, play after play, Stevenson and Henderson were blown up behind the line of scrimmage. The Patriots’ offensive line is only providing 0.8 yards before contact. Gross. Maybe this game, a possible blowout win, will usher in newfound usage for Henderson. But, as it stands, he’s just not on the field enough to be reliable. His Utilization Score has gone down in four straight games! Anything’s possible with the Titans on the schedule, but I prefer a safer option for your Guillotine team.
Sit: Travis Hunter vs. Rams (in London)
Travis Hunter was billed as the NFL’s version of Shohei Ohtani during the 2025 NFL Draft. He was capable of dominating on offense and defense, and the Jaguars traded a good bit to go up and select him at No. 2 overall. They talked up his workload as a receiver during the offseason, so there was reason for optimism about his fantasy prospects as a rookie.
Unfortunately, things haven’t worked out that way. Hunter has played more on offense than on defense as a rookie, and he got up to an 86% route participation in Week 6. Unfortunately, that’s about where the positives end. He has just a 16% target share for the year, and most of those targets have come around the line of scrimmage. His average depth of target (aDOT) sits at a paltry 7.5 yards, and it dipped to just 4.0 vs. a depleted Seahawks’ defense in Week 6.
Hunter is going to have to navigate a significantly tougher set of circumstances in Week 7. He’s taking on the Rams in London, and the Rams have had a fantastic defense to start the year. They’re fourth in pass defense EPA, and they own the No. 1 coverage grade from PFF. They’re also sixth in pass rush grade, so they’re capable of beating teams in multiple ways.
Additionally, these overseas contests tend to be lower-scoring. The under is 18-14 in games that start before 10 a.m. ET, including an 8-4 mark since the start of 2023.
Until we start seeing more production from Hunter, he’s not someone you can feel comfortable starting in any format. He’s been held in single-digit PPR points in each game this season, and I see no reason why that changes vs. the Rams.
Charch says: If you want to get Thor Nystrom worked up, show him some of these inexplicable usage stats for Travis Hunter. His sweet spot is downfield, across the middle of the field. Yet the Jaguars are using him almost exclusively on short routes. Hunter’s got only 2 catches deeper than 9 yards!
Adding to his lack of production is the Jaguars' deep rotation of receivers, including Dyami Brown and Parker Washington, who are running nearly as many routes as Hunter.
Start: Tez Johnson at Lions
Tez Johnson may not be getting MVP chants from the crowd just yet, but he can definitely be a fantasy MVP for some in Week 7. Johnson stepped into a nearly every-down role for the Bucs’ passing attack in Week 6, running a route on 84% of the team’s dropbacks. He managed just three targets and one catch, but he made the most of it, turning it into a 45-yard touchdown.
Johnson has the potential to take another step forward in Week 7. Not only are the Bucs expected to be down Mike Evans and Chris Godwin for another week, but stud rookie Emeka Egbuka will join them on the sidelines vs. the Lions. All three injured receivers have a target share of at least 20% this season, and those looks are going to have to go somewhere. Johnson and Sterling Shepard should be the primary beneficiaries at receiver, while Cade Otton has plenty of appeal at tight end.
The matchup vs. the Lions is merely the cherry on top. Detroit’s secondary has been decimated by injuries over the past few weeks, and it could be even thinner in this matchup. Brian Branch has been suspended for his role in a postgame altercation vs. the Chiefs, so unless they can get a bit healthier at cornerback, they could be without a handful of key players.
Ultimately, Mayfield might be the MVP at this point in the season, and getting one of his primary pass catchers in an elite matchup is too good to pass up. Our rankers have Johnson as a borderline WR3 in Week 7, and I think that’s a bit too conservative.
Charch Says: Tez Johnson, Sterling Shepard and Cade Otton are viable options this week against a battered Detroit secondary. I find Otton the most intriguing, especially since he plays the position that’s hardest to fill. Over the past two weeks, Otton’s caught 9 passes for 132 yards. Last year, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin missed Weeks 6-11, and Otton exploded, turning into TE2 over that stretch, averaging 17 PPR points per game.
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