Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!
Tap Ball is sweeping the streets of our Springfields and during this first Act of the event a few characters get into it and actually play Tap Ball! One character added to our stores that can play Tap Ball is Football Nelson! Now I know you may be trying to decide if this is worth YOUR donuts, but don’t sweat it! We’re here to tell you what’s worth the donuts and what you might want to hold off on.
Wondering if you should add Football Nelson to YOUR Tap Ball Roster? Well before you hit that confirm button let’s break down the pros and cons of adding this bully to YOUR team!
Character/Skin: Football Nelson
Donut Price: 85 donuts
Pros:
-Comes with a quest line
-Premium character earns 50% more on all cash and xp than a freemium character (on cash earning tasks. Otherwise same Amateur Buck Payout as regular characters, but a higher XP payout)
-Can play Tap Ball
-Comes with Amateur Buck earning tasks
Cons:
-Tap Ball ability is only good if you have 7 characters, otherwise you just have 1 extra character sitting on the bench (since you can only play 4 at a time)
-Expensive for just a skin for Nelson
-Only rated 1.5 stars, so you’ll still have to do some work to level him up.
Final Thought:
Premium Take:
Football Nelson isn’t a bad purchase. He’ll help round out your team towards the end of Act 1, so you can play consecutive games (assuming you have Jasper and Tatum, and Win Mr. Burns). However, right now…he’s meh. He’s kind of useless until you unlock other characters that can play. Basically he’s the 5th wheel on the bench. So while he’s not a bad buy, he’s not exactly practical for Tap Ball purposes just yet. However, you can grab him and just use him for his Amateur Buck earning tasks right now…
Freemium Take:
Freemium players…I’d pass on this one. If you’re a freemium player than odds are you don’t have Jasper or Tatum, so Nelson will kind of be completely useless to you (in a Tap Ball sense) at least until Act 2. Plus, I think he’s way over priced for what he does.
Of course in the end it’s your decision, we can only tell you what we would/wouldn’t do…and I can tell you as a premium player i’m on the fence with him. If I do grab him it won’t be until i’ve unlocked more characters. However, this IS a limited-time item. So if you’re thinking about getting him make sure you make your final decision before he leaves our games.
Football Nelson’s Permanent Tasks:
Task | Length | Earns | Location |
Repair Equipment | 1hr | $105, 26xp | Muntz House |
Practice Tap Ball | 4hrs | 4 ![]() |
Tap Ball Field |
Throw a Hail Mary | 4hrs | 4 ![]() |
Visual |
Practice Tackling in the Hallway | 8hrs | 8 ![]() |
Springfield Elementary |
Laugh at the Misfortune of Professional Players | 12hrs | $600, 150xp | Muntz House |
Stiff-Arm Rush | 24hrs | 24 ![]() |
Visual |
What are your thoughts on Football Nelson? Will you be spending the donuts to bring him to your Springfield (or did you already)? Which other characters are you looking forward to getting? Sound off in the comments below, you know we love hearing from you!
Looking for Should I Buy Guides for more premium content? Check out our complete Tapped Out Premium Guide here
I’ve been keeping Jasper’s Stonecutter skin in storage but this event caused me to purchase him. Hopefully he will prove useful again in future events as well.
There is a bug where if you dont have enough amateur dollars to upgrade a player, it costs donuts. However the algorithm caculates the cost to be 0 donuts if you are close enough. Upgrading instantly refreshes a charcter. Ive managed to sneak free games using this. Nelson helped me numbers wise so that 7 players = 2 games. Of course you still spend yr bucks, but less than you should have
Since you can have your players doing tasks and playing tap ball at the same time, I am thinking that if you have the skin but not the character, you might be able to play tap ball with the skin, but you won’t have the character to walk around town and do tasks. I already have Jasper, so I won’t be able to tell when I get his skin later today or early tomorrow. But if someone out there can test this and let us know, I would appreciate it.
I went ahead and bought him right away for the amateur buck earning from the start. Also helps that he starts off at a higher star level for early wins. Thought the quest was pretty good, only thing I didn’t like is how it just ends without really knowing it – but that’s pretty much a problem with most tasks. Would be nice if they called out the end of the quest better than they do.
I did also, unfortunately it’s mostly Lisa who is benched now, but I did upgrade her so now she sees some action
It’s a really expensive skin, I love it, but not at that price.
This long time Tapper says “save your Donuts for something else” 😉
Hi Alissa/Bunny
In my Daily Training screen I received the first three items everything else is still locked. On the bottom of Daily Training screen it reads ” You have completed all tasks! ” What tasks are they talking about. Thanks very much for your help.
Ummmm. We are only on Day 3 of the event. Can’t go forward in time. 😉
Day 4 will roll over 8gmt/ 4am eastern
D’oh! I mentioned this problem in another thread and hoped this was the case but am a worrywort. I’d used 2 donuts to speed the last of the 3 Burns tasks needed for the tonic, because I wanted to start the next one before bed and assumed with the way the timer had been working it would be okay but it just disappeared instead. Thanks for the info 🙂
I am just going to ignore tap ball for now, because I can still progress through the event without it. So, I won’t buy him.
Why would you want to ignore tap ball?? And I don’t see how you can progress through the event very well without playing, since it’s a good way to earn event currency (fingers and bucks) and a requirement for today’s daily tasks (at least for me).
That’s where my B game comes in! 🙂 Mainly what I am saying is that I will not upgrade tap ball players. Not skip it completely, now THAT would be nonsense.
I’ll pass. Kinda bummed that I don’t have Jasper, his outfit is amazing! That’s not money I can spend right now so he’ll just sit in my inventory with his stonecutter skin.
I really don’t understand why EA has been charging so much for skins. In many cases, they’re almost as much, as much, or even more expensive than whole new characters!
Why haven’t I been updated yet? I am at level 53. Most of my friends and neighbors are updated and I can’t collect at their place with out updating too. Everybody is having fun but me.I want to play too.
You have to download the update from the App store
I wonder if we’ll still be able to play after the event is over and earn money?
Hard to say…
I in?lcked sporty jasper. In my inventory it says unlocked and has character under the outfit. Kinda odd considering sporty outfit jasper is a skin.
One minor point. The fifth player can help in some cases. Upgrading a tired player recharges him, so with the fifth player, you only need to upgrade or obesotade three players to play immediately. Sure, not as good as going from 7 to 8 players, but with obesotade or an upgrade or two, 5, 6 or 7 players isn’t a total loss.
It’s true. It’s early but I’ve had a couple of occasions already where I’ve upgraded 3 of my 4 but have to wait cos I don’t have a 5th player and can’t afford to upgrade my 4th
Thanks for this post! Do we have enough info available about the other two acts to know how many players we’ll be awarded for free and how many we’ll have to buy if we want to have an extra team, for instance? Or whether the teams will have more than four players in the other two acts? Football Nelson seems like a good buy, but I’m wondering if I should buy Tatum and/or Lugash, since their skins will be useless without them.
I forgot to mention that I already have Jasper and the Crazy Cat Lady (that should be an interesting one to see in action!).
Won’t know till it hits…