The Ballers lineup for Thursday night in Melbourne: the Nacua captain, the cheap receiver problem, the two-quarterback build, the McCaffrey fade and the value under £3,000, from Fantasy GameDay's salaries and the Statz projection.
The contest: five seats, £25,000, and a very top-heavy pool
Thursday night is the second Ballers contest of the week: five players for £25,000, one of them a captain who costs his normal salary and scores 1.5 times, and four superflex seats that can hold any position including a second quarterback. No captain at quarterback, no kickers, no defences, no team limit. The Rams are the home side at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, kick-off 8:35pm Eastern on Thursday, 01:35 BST on Friday morning, and the contest locks at kick-off.
This pool is shaped very differently from Wednesday's. Four players cost £7,000 or more (Christian McCaffrey £7,800, Puka Nacua £7,600, Kyren Williams £7,200, Matthew Stafford £7,000), two sit at £5,400 (Brock Purdy and Davante Adams), and then it falls off a cliff: 35 of the 57 players are at the £2,000 minimum. Two stars and a quarterback eat £20,000, so the whole contest is about which two cheap seats you can trust.
The scoring is full PPR with four-point passing touchdowns, the same rules as the Statz PPR projection, so the numbers below are the numbers that score.
The game the projection sees
Rams 25, 49ers 22.7, a 47.7-point game with Los Angeles winning 57 times in 100, and both quarterbacks throwing: Stafford projects 262 yards and 1.9 touchdowns, Purdy 248, 1.7 and 18 rushing yards. San Francisco's pass rush managed 20 sacks last season, last in the league, and the Rams' pass defence ranked 20th, which is why both passing games get big matchup edges and why the Statz projection has a receiver as the top scorer in the pool.
The backfields split. Kyren Williams projects 17.5 carries, 81 yards and 0.8 touchdowns, the only workhorse role on either side. McCaffrey projects 8.6 carries and 2.9 catches, which is not the McCaffrey the £7,800 salary is pricing. Read that as the model expecting a managed workload in a game at the end of a 15-hour flight; if the 49ers give him 20 touches the projection is wrong, but that is the bet you are making at the top salary.
The captain
Puka Nacua is the pool's top projection at around 18 points (9.4 targets, 84 yards, half a touchdown, plus a few carries) and as captain he returns about 27 for £7,600. Nothing else in the pool gets near that with the multiplier: Kyren Williams at 16.3 points is 24.5 as captain for £7,200, Davante Adams at about 16 is 24.5 for £5,400. Adams is the price play: £2,200 cheaper than Nacua for three fewer captain points, and the model has him at 72 receiving yards against a 49.5 line, which is the softest receiving number in the game.
The cheap captain on this slate is Tyler Higbee, £2,200 for a 7.9 projection with a 14.3 ceiling, which is 11.9 as captain. The model likes him a lot more than the market does (36 receiving yards against an 11.5 line), but a tight end captain at that projection is a tournament swing, not a cash-game play.
- Puka Nacua, captain — WR, LAR · £7,600 · 9.4 targets, 84 yards, 0.5 TD projected — at £7,600 — Top projection in the pool at about 18, 27 with the multiplier. Listed possible on the FanTeam sheet; the Rams depth chart has him starting.
- Davante Adams, captain — WR, LAR · £5,400 · 72 receiving yards projected v a 49.5 line — at £5,400 — About 16 points raw, 24.5 as captain, £2,200 cheaper than Nacua. The seat that pays for a second star.
- Kyren Williams, captain — RB, LAR · £7,200 · 17.5 carries, 81 yards, 0.8 TD — at £7,200 — The only workhorse in the game. 16.3 raw, 24.5 as captain, and the touchdown equity is the best of any back.
The cheap seats, and the one you should not trust
The optimiser's lineup spends the full £25,000: Nacua as captain, Purdy, Adams, Mike Evans and Brandon Aiyuk, and projects just under 80. The problem is the last name. Aiyuk sits at the £2,000 minimum with a 7.8 projection, which makes him the best value on the board by the numbers, and he is also listed on FanTeam's injury sheet as "did not report, knee", with a torn ACL and MCL behind it, and he is not on the 49ers depth chart. The projection is a model that has not been told he is not there. Treat him as unavailable until the inactives say otherwise, and do not build a lineup that needs him.
The cheap seats that are real: Higbee at £2,200 (7.9 projected, 3.6 points per £1,000, the Rams' second tight end but the one the model has catching three passes), and Deebo Samuel at £3,600, projected around nine on 3.3 catches and 39 yards with a 65% over on his 29.5 receiving line. Purdy at £5,400 is the best-priced quarterback in either Thursday or Wednesday's pool: 18 projected with a 29.7 ceiling, 3.3 points per £1,000, and £1,600 cheaper than Stafford for roughly a point less. Colby Parkinson at £3,000 is the model's value scorer, a 49% touchdown probability at 4.90, but he projects only around seven and a half in points because the yards are thin.
The fades are the two most expensive players. McCaffrey at £7,800 projects about 13 on 8.6 carries and 2.9 catches, under 1.7 points per £1,000, and the model clears his 59.5 rushing line 18 times in 100. George Kittle at £4,200 is questionable with an achilles and projects under nine even if he plays. Kyren Williams is the expensive player who is priced right: 16 points at £7,200 is fair, and as captain he is the second-best number in the pool.
- Brock Purdy — QB, SF · £5,400 · 248 yards, 1.7 TD, 18 rush yards — at £5,400 — 18.0 projected, 29.7 ceiling, 3.3 per £1,000. The best-priced quarterback of the week and in every build.
- Tyler Higbee — TE, LAR · £2,200 · 36 receiving yards projected v an 11.5 line — at £2,200 — 7.9 projected, 3.6 per £1,000. The cheap seat that is actually on the field.
- Deebo Samuel Sr. — WR, SF · £3,600 · 3.3 catches, 39 yards — at £3,600 — About nine projected, and a 65% over on a 29.5 receiving line. The 49ers' number two target with Aiyuk unavailable.
- Do not trust: Brandon Aiyuk — WR, SF · £2,000 · listed did not report, knee — at £2,000 — The board projects 7.8 because the model has not been told he is not there. Off the depth chart. Unavailable until the inactives say otherwise.
- Fade: Christian McCaffrey — RB, SF · £7,800 · 8.6 carries, 2.9 catches projected — at £7,800 — About 13 points at the top salary, 1.7 per £1,000. The model expects a managed workload after the flight; the price expects 2024.
Two lineups
Lineup A is the optimiser's build with Aiyuk removed: Nacua as captain, Purdy, Adams, Deebo Samuel and Higbee, £24,200 and a projection of about 78.5. Two Rams receivers, the cheaper quarterback and the two cheap seats the model actually likes. It leaves £800 on the table, and there is nothing at £2,800 that beats Higbee.
Lineup B is the two-quarterback build, and on this slate it is close to the optimal: Stafford and Purdy together cost £12,400 and project 35 points between them, Adams takes the captain seat at £5,400, and Evans and Higbee fill the last two for £24,600 and a projection just under 78. It is one point behind Lineup A with a different theory: quarterbacks are the floor in a throwing game, and the captain is the receiver the market has underpriced rather than the one it has priced right.
If you want a third entry, captain Kyren Williams with Purdy, Nacua, Higbee and De'Zhaun Stribling is £25,000 exactly and projects around 73: lower, but it is the only build in which the Rams run the game out, and the model's 79% edge for the Rams' run game against the 49ers front says that script is live.
- Lineup A: Nacua captain — CPT Nacua · Purdy · Adams · Deebo Samuel · Higbee — at £24,200 — The optimiser's build with Aiyuk swapped out for Deebo. £800 unspent.
- Lineup B: two quarterbacks — CPT Adams · Stafford · Purdy · Evans · Higbee — at £24,600 — Both passers for 35 combined points, the captain on the underpriced receiver.
- Lineup C: the Rams run it out — CPT Kyren Williams · Purdy · Nacua · Higbee · Stribling — at £25,000 — The contrarian script: the workhorse as captain and both Rams stars in one lineup.
The verdict
Captain Nacua, play Purdy and Adams, and fill the cheap seats with Higbee and Deebo. Leave McCaffrey and Kittle out at their prices, and leave Aiyuk out at any price until he is on an active list. The two-quarterback build is the second entry, and on a slate with only three trustworthy cheap players it is the one that survives a bad night from any single receiver. Inactives drop about 90 minutes before kick-off, which is roughly midnight UK time.
Put it to work
- Fantasy GameDay Optimiser The Ballers board for this game: every salary against the projection, and the cap-legal lineup.
- Game page: 49ers at Rams The model's score, every projected prop and the injury rail.
- How to play Fantasy GameDay Ballers, Stars and Classic explained, with the promo code.