The Ballers lineup for the Wednesday-night opener: captain picks, the two-quarterback build, the value plays under £3,000 and the fades, from Fantasy GameDay's salaries and the Statz projection.
The contest: £25,000, a captain and four superflex slots
The season opens with a one-game Ballers contest, and Ballers is the simplest format Fantasy GameDay runs: five players for £25,000, one of them the captain, who costs his normal salary and scores 1.5 times his points. The captain cannot be a quarterback. The other four are superflex, which means any position including quarterback, so you can roster both passers if you want to. No kickers, no defence, no team limit. Five Seahawks is legal if the budget allows.
The scoring is full PPR with four-point passing touchdowns and a two-point penalty for interceptions and lost fumbles, the same rules as the Statz PPR projection, so every number below is directly the number that scores. Prices in this pool run from £2,000 for the depth pieces to £7,000 for Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and with only five slots the cap genuinely binds: the five most expensive players cost £30,200.
Kick-off is 8:20pm Eastern on Wednesday, 01:20 BST on Thursday morning, and the contest locks at kick-off. The inactives list drops about 90 minutes before that, which matters here because the best value in the pool is carrying a hamstring tag.
The game script the projection is built on
The model has Seattle 24, New England 21, a 45-point game with the Seahawks winning six times in ten, and it has both offences throwing. Drake Maye projects 216 passing yards, 1.6 touchdowns and 31 rushing yards. Sam Darnold projects 204 and 1.4. Neither back is a workhorse in this projection: Rhamondre Stevenson gets 6.9 carries and Jadarian Price 7.8, with Seattle's backfield thinned by Zach Charbonnet on the PUP list. The receivers get the volume: Smith-Njigba 8.4 targets, A.J. Brown 8.4, Hunter Henry five.
That shape decides the whole lineup. A one-game contest with two pass-first offences and no bell-cow back is a receiver-and-quarterback contest, and the captain slot, which pays 1.5 times, wants the highest raw projection in the pool, not the best price.
The captain
Smith-Njigba is the projection's top scorer at about 15 points, and the captain multiplier turns that into nearly 23 for £7,000. A.J. Brown is a point behind at around 14.5, which is 21.75 as captain for £5,200, and the £1,800 saved buys the gap between Hunter Henry and a £2,000 punt. On raw points the Smith-Njigba captain wins; on lineup flexibility the Brown captain does, and the two builds below use one each.
The cheap captain is Tory Horton. He is the best value in the pool by a distance, £2,200 for a 9.1 projection with a 17-point ceiling, and as captain he returns 13.6 while leaving £22,800 for four players. That is a contrarian build that only works if he is active, and Fantasy GameDay lists him questionable with a hamstring. If he is on the inactives list, the same slot goes to DeMario Douglas at £2,000 and the ceiling drops.
- Jaxon Smith-Njigba, captain — WR, SEA · £7,000 · 8.4 targets, 63 yards, 0.5 TD projected — at £7,000 — The highest projection in the pool at about 15 points, 22.8 with the multiplier. The safe captain.
- A.J. Brown, captain — WR, NE · £5,200 · 8.4 targets, 61 yards, 0.5 TD projected — at £5,200 — A point behind Smith-Njigba raw, £1,800 cheaper, and the 58% Patriots passing edge in the matchup grid runs through him.
- Tory Horton, captain — WR, SEA · £2,200 · questionable, hamstring — at £2,200 — Projected 9.1 with a 17.2 ceiling, 4.1 points per £1,000, the best value on the board. Only if he is active.
Two lineups
The optimiser's lineup is the one Fantasy GameDay's salaries practically hand you: Smith-Njigba as captain, Maye, Brown, Horton and Henry, for £24,200 and a projection of 72.6. It uses the captain on the top scorer, both lead receivers, the better quarterback and the best tight end, and it has £800 to spare. There is nothing clever about it, which is usually the sign of a good lineup.
The second build is the one the superflex rule invites. Both quarterbacks cost £12,600 together, and Maye plus Darnold project a combined 31 points, which no two non-quarterbacks in this pool get near. Put Brown in the captain slot, Henry at tight end and Horton in the last seat and you have £23,000 spent for a projection just under 71. Two points behind the optimal, but it is built on a different theory of the game: that the quarterbacks are the most reliable points on the field and the receivers are the variance. If Horton is out, Douglas fills the seat at £2,000 and the projection drops about two and a half.
- Lineup A: the optimiser — CPT Smith-Njigba · Maye · Brown · Horton · Henry — at £24,200 — Top projection in the pool at every slot. Swap Horton for Douglas if the hamstring rules him out.
- Lineup B: two quarterbacks — CPT Brown · Maye · Darnold · Henry · Horton — at £23,000 — Both passers, 31 combined points, and the captain on the Patriots' lead target. £2,000 unspent.
Value plays and fades
Under £3,000 the pool has three players who project like starters. Horton at £2,200 is the headline. Hunter Henry at £3,000 projects 9.1 on five targets, three points per £1,000, and is the tight end in every build. DeMario Douglas at £2,000 projects 6.7 and is the fallback if Horton sits. AJ Barner at £2,400 projects around seven on 3.5 targets and is the cheaper tight end if you need £600 back. Between them they let you pay for the two captains and the quarterback.
The fades are the running backs. Stevenson costs £5,200, the same as Brown, and projects under ten on 6.9 carries and 2.3 catches; even with the model giving him the best touchdown probability in the game at 52%, he is 1.9 points per £1,000 against Brown's 2.8. Price at £4,400 projects about ten on 7.8 carries, and the market has already priced the lead role the Charbonnet injury handed him. Cooper Kupp at £3,400 and Romeo Doubs at £4,000 are the third receivers in their offences and project like it, and Rashid Shaheed at £2,800 is a big-play punt with a projection under six. Darnold at £5,800 is £1,000 cheaper than Maye for four fewer points; he only makes sense in the double-quarterback build, where he is the fourth-highest projection in the pool.
- Hunter Henry — TE, NE · £3,000 · 5 targets, 39 yards, 0.3 TD — at £3,000 — 9.1 projected, 3.0 per £1,000. The tight end in every build.
- DeMario Douglas — WR, NE · £2,000 — at £2,000 — 6.7 projected at the minimum salary. The Horton insurance.
- Drake Maye — QB, NE · £6,800 · 216 yards, 1.6 TD, 31 rush yards — at £6,800 — About 17.5 projected, the highest non-captain number in the pool. The rushing yards are the edge over Darnold.
- Fade: Rhamondre Stevenson — RB, NE · £5,200 · 6.9 carries — at £5,200 — Under ten projected at a lead-receiver price. The touchdown equity is real; the volume is not.
The verdict
Captain Smith-Njigba, play Maye, Brown and Henry, and let Horton's status decide the last seat. If you want a second entry, the two-quarterback build is a genuinely different lineup rather than a reshuffle, and in a one-game contest that is what a second entry is for. Check the inactives at about midnight UK time, and if Horton is out, move Douglas in and do not chase the £200 you save.
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: Patriots at Seahawks 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.