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"Power Rankings man/bear/pig guy provides us with the controversial hot takes that makes each season so special.  Does everyone agree? No.  Should he care? No.  Calls a spade a spade.  You either put up or shut up cause the numbers don't lie. Big facts" – Anonymous testimonial

Welcome back for Week Six of the TSL Quarterback Power Rankings (Fall 2019 Edition).  If you’re pressed for time this week and just looking for a quick summary, here is our entire article condensed into the form of a Haiku:

Top Ten mostly same,

Topper leap frogs Dean and Vince,

Next ten are madness

Bobby McConnell #1 and Eyes Downtown win their most important game of the season (so far) beating Marketing Mayors 37-29.  Sorry to BORE you, but that’s going to make the #1 ranking very predictable this week, and probably the rest of the season too.  Let’s recap (as we plagiarize ourselves from last week’s article):

·         Best record in the highest division, now 7-1

·         Highest points per game in the highest division (34.1 ppg)

·         Longest active winning streak in the League (tied with Over Compensators, sure)

·         Has now beaten every team in D1 at least once this season (though not every QB, as Mark Dalfonso #2 was not present for the game)

Good luck topping that.

We expected Matty Ice #4 to take care of business with A&A, who beat Dilfs 45-15 this week.  We expected him to take care of business with Matty’s Angels, who absolutely crushed Full Throttle 66-22.  We did NOT expect Matty to literally join a third team mid-season and nearly beat Slytherin That End Zone in their first game.  More on the We Back/Schilling Em Softly saga later in this article, but Matty’s apparently back on three teams (though will not be quarterbacking for S.E.S. going forward) and continuing to put up laughable numbers: he’s now 11-1 this season with 549 points scored for his two primary teams (plus various other points scored while subbing for others).  Amazing.  Despite what Matty thinks though, his 111 points this week for A&A and Matty’s Angels are NOT a League record for two games in a single week, as that “record” is at least 115 points, shared by… Matty Ice, from Week Three of Spring 2019 when he put up 115 against Hope N Ruin and Pink Pteratacos, and… Matty Ice, from Week Two of Spring 2019 when he put up 115 against Home Tech and EmC HammerTime.  At least, that’s the record as far as we can tell (our records only go back to last session, so take all our nonsense with a grain of salt).  If you’re wondering what the “record” is for three games in a day, Matty ALSO put up 54 points against Five Star Generals in Week Two of last season, so that would be 169 points across three games.  115 is a record that might someday fall (Larry Chruscial had 108 just two weeks ago, and Matty might have beaten it himself had the Angels game not been called early) but 169 should be safe for a long long time.

The only story more incredible than Matty’s triple dominance might be the unexpected rise of Uncle Topper.  We dismissed it as a fluke when Hofbrauhaus Buffalo started the season with a few dominant wins.  We said just about anyone could win behind that defense.  We said they hadn’t played anyone good yet, or that the teams they’d played were missing key athletes.  We said once they had to face the real superpowers of D2 (A&A and Peachy Platoon… you knew who we were talking about), they’d come crashing down to Earth.  And yet here we are in the early days of October, and Patrick McGovern #5 is still undefeated after his first signature win of the season, handing Dean Thompson #6 his first “real” loss in D2 while locking up his highest ranking in the history of the this article.  Hofbrauhaus Buffalo dominated their much younger opponents, with Topper scoring the first 38ish points of the game.  The first 7 were a pick six (plus extra point) he threw to Peachy Platoon, but the next 31 were all for Hofbrauhaus, and the League icon somehow remains undefeated.  Is Topper going to pull a Peyton Manning and somehow drag his elderly, broken body to a Championship and then retire on top?  Time will tell, and next week’s game against A&A will allegedly be without Matty Ice… if Hofbrauhaus wins, does Topper have a legitimate claim to pass an absentee Matty in the Rankings?

Speaking of upsets (that even our Godfather didn’t see coming!) how about No Punt Intended beating All We Do Is Quinn 39-26?  Vince Taverna #7 has been so dominant this season that we almost forgot he was capable of losing games, but Kyle Conniff #11 and NPI put the pressure on early, jumping to a big lead and never letting up.  NPI and AWDIQ are the only two teams with strong point differentials in D3 (there’s a graph of this below of course), so if this was a preview of the D3 championship game, it’s not a very encouraging outcome for the Quinners.  No Punt Intended then finished their day with a 43-13 massacre of the Sticky Bandits, which puts the team in first place in D3, and Kyle on the verge of his first Top Ten appearance in the Power Rankings. 

Matt Newman #8 had another strong day at the office, scoring 77 points between a 36-31 win over Schilling Em Softly and a 45-41 loss to Energy Buff.  Slytherin and Dilfs are stuck in that second tier of D2 – unable to beat the Power Three in the division, but a step above their struggling division rivals at the bottom of the standings.  Newman is good, but is he good enough to be taken seriously as a contender in the playoffs?  We’re not sure yet.

Three athletes in our Top Ten (Chris Cole #3, Joey Batts #9 and Mike McKenrick #10) had byes and maintain their spots in the Power Rankings this week.  Other than Topper jumping past Dean and Vince, there isn’t any other movement in the Top Ten this week.  The madness begins in the #11-#20 spots, where every single Quarterback either went up or down in the Rankings this week.

Joe Miano #12 falls one spot this week and Scott Keller #13 rises two, as a result of 3^rd & Schlong’s surprising 41-8 destruction of Jabronies this week.  We knew this had potential to be an upset, but no one on the Power Rankings Committee predicted that Schlong would run away with this game.  Schlong continues to rise and gets harder and harder to beat (“schlong” jokes are easy); after setting the League’s longest losing streak, they’re now on a three game tear (two of which are against teams with winning records) and Katie Keller’s not the ONLY reason why this team has the second highest points per game in D3.

Frodo Swaggins continues to flash their incredible potential and then fall just short of realizing it, with a 43-26 win over Ultimate Warriors (who had also lost 41-28 earlier in the day to Puckett All-Stars) and a 38-36 loss to End Game.  Lots to unpack there, as four of our Top Twenty quarterbacks were covered in that sentence.  Scotty “The Moose” Dro #14 drops in our Power Rankings, not JUST because of his failed called shot on this week’s double header, and not JUST because of Frodo’s recent mediocrity on the field (both of which have gotten him some scathing reviews from the League website articles these past couple weeks), but also because old man Keller is flat out killing it and deserves to move up.  Scott Pinto #17 of UW drops one spot and his teammate Sam Lattuca #22 drops out of the Top Twenty altogether.  Ultimate Warriors play competitive games and they can never be considered an easy win, but at some point they have to get some W’s to earn respect in D3.  David Eickhoff #18 and End Game bust out of their recent slump with a quality win over Frodo, moving Dave up a spot. 

Larry Chruscial #15 falls three rankings, and all he did was beat Practice Squad 28-14.  There’s no Power Rankings justice in this world, we agree.  You could argue he should be higher for being one of two undefeated teams AND leading the League in points per game (Matty’s Angels excluded).  Or you could argue he should be lower in the Rankings because he’s the only D5 quarterback in the Top Twenty, and one of only two that plays exclusively below D3.  You’re free to disagree with us, but we think we have him ranked just right.  Larry’s only path back to the Top Ten is dominant, borderline unsportsmanlike wins.  Good luck!

Andy Clark #16 is our only other Top Twenty quarterback playing exclusively below D3, and he has Buffalo Solar Solutions heating up in D4.  This week Andy beat Mountain Dew Me 45-20, which is good enough to rise one spot in our Power Rankings.  D4 remains a three team division, and it’s difficult for us to imagine Full Throttle, Mountain Dew Me or Uncle Rico’s Time Travelers playing in the finals later this month.

Ricky Austin #19 makes his return to the Power Rankings this week, with wins for AND against Energy Buff – it’s not often a player gets to pull that off in a single week.  “Good Ricky” first led Bullet Club to a 25-22 win over Energy Buff, and then an hour later (perhaps feeling guilty for the sadness he inflicted on them) subbed for Energy Buff to lead them to a thrilling 45-41 comeback against Slytherin That End Zone.  Ricky’s almost certainly underrated at the #19 spot based on talent alone, but Bullet Club has had enough QB inconsistency this session that we haven’t been able to rank him at all until now.

Vaspian’s inaugural season hit a setback this week as they got crushed 44-18 by the Sticky Bandits.  Lucas Kramer #20 drops two ranks but hangs on to our final spot in the Top Twenty.  Seven of the quarterbacks knotted up in the #11-#20 spots of our Power Rankings play in D3, which may be the most competitive from division top to bottom.  The first place team in the D3 standings right now is No Punt Intended, who have lost to Jabronies, who have lost to 3^rd & Schlong, who have lost to Sticky Bandits, who have lost to Ultimate Warriors, who have lost to Puckett All-Stars, who have lost to Frodo Swaggins, who have lost to End Game, who have to lost to Vaspian, who have lost to All We Do Is Quinn, who have lost to… No Punt Intended.  Any team can beat any other team in this division, so these Power Rankings are splitting hairs here. 

We have been asked SO many times over the last few months why we can’t just rank two players as tied when they’re THAT close in performance (ie Cole and Dalfonso early in the season, and much of D3 today).  Our answer: ties are weak, and they are a cop-out.  Power Rankings are supposed to establish who is better than whom, and even though this can be REALLY hard sometimes, we vow that we will never cheat you by calling a tie between two or more players in our Rankings.

***

Here are a few quick hits on your TSL team leaders after six weeks:

·         Best Offensive Team (total points) – All We Do Is Quinn, 334

·         Best Offensive Team (points per game) – Matty’s Angels, 52

·         Best Offensive Team Non-Gender (points per game) – Over Compensators, 46.4

·         Worst Offensive Team (total points) – Shattered Dreams, 76

·         Worst Offensive Team (points per game) – Pink Pteratacos, 14.2*

·         Best Defensive Team (total points against) – Hofbrauhaus Buffalo, 61

·         Best Defensive Team (points against per game) – Hofbrauhaus Buffalo, 12.2

·         Worst Defensive Team (total points against) – Gryffindor, 304

·         Worst Defensive Team (points against per game) – Uncle Rico’s Time Travelers, 47.8

·         Best Point Differential (total points) – Over Compensators, +180

·         Best Point Differential (points per game) – Hofbrauhaus Buffalo, +30.8

·         Worst Point Differential (total points) – Shattered Dreams, -126*

·         Worst Point Differential (points per game) – Shattered Dreams, -25.2*

·         Longest Current Win Streak – TIE: Eyes Downtown, Over Compensators, 7

·         Longest Current Losing Streak – Pink Pteratacos, 6*

·         Remaining Undefeated Teams: A&A, Hofbrauhaus Buffalo, Over Compensators

·         Remaining Winless Teams: We Back, Pink Pteratacos, Shattered Dreams

You see all those asterisks above?  Yeah, we need to talk about We Back.  Apparently their team has entirely dissolved mid-season and been replaced by Schilling Em Softly, the reigning Breakfast Club Champions.  This is crazy/awesome on many levels, and it wreaks havoc on our stat keeping.  We Back was leading MANY of those categories above (none that they’d want to, of course) but it doesn’t make much sense to continue to list them among League leaders.  Instead, we’re retiring them from the stats view above, and for the sake of stat tracking, straight up replacing them with Schilling Em Softly, an 0-1 team with 31 points for and 36 points against.  Their records will be kept separate as much as possible when we should charts and stats.  How does this work if Schilling Em Softly and A&A end up playing each other in the playoffs, since Matty plays on (but apparently won’t be quarterbacking) both teams?  We have no idea, but the QB Power Rankings aren’t the place to debate that – we’ll stick with what we’re “good” at and leave those decisions to League management.

Eyes Downtown and Over Compensators both won this week, keeping our League’s longest win streaks intact.  Pink Pteratacos is now recognized as the longest losing streak in the League, which they might argue is unfair since We Back/Schilling Em Softly are a combined 0-7 this season, but life’s not fair and neither are we in the Power Rankings Committee.

All three undefeated teams won this week.  All three winless teams lost this week.  Barring a tie, we’re guaranteed to have at least ONE change next week, as A&A and Hofbrauhaus Buffalo can’t both stay undefeated playing against each other.

***

No charts for you this week.  What?  We’re not contractually obligated to make charts.

Here’s a graph of each team’s point differentials per game instead.  Yes, it’s the same concept as last week, but now it’s in graph form (so you can see visually how terrible your team really is) and updated with one more week’s data.  Look, it’s tough to come up with different charts every week, this is the best we’ve got:

If you’re reading this on your phone and the font is too tiny to make out your team’s name, just assume you’re the worst one in your division.

***

That’s it for this week!  If you have any thoughts on why you hate this article (“records” that go back only a season and a half are pointless?  you miss the line graph from last week?  you play on Pink Pteratacos and you demand the We Back/Schilling Em Softly losing streak be officially recognized?), please send complaints to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

What’s YOUR ranking?

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