Welcome back to the TSL Quarterback Power Rankings! 

 

As Jack Reacher once said before fighting five guys (or was it three? Two of them always run away…), “okay, now we know who’s who”.  We’re at the midpoint of the TSL Spring season, and we FINALLY feel like we know who’s who.  No more hiding behind an easy start to the schedule, no more excuses for a tough slate of games the first couple of weeks.  You are who you are at this point.  We SEE you.  We JUDGE you.  We RANK you.

 

So below you’ll find the Top TWENTY quarterbacks in the TSL.  And yes, it’s Week Four, so that means you FINALLY get a fancy chart too.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

#1 Bobby McConnell - Eyes Downtown

Last Week:  Beat Legends 39-37

Two weeks ago, Legends beat Eyes Downtown.  Last week Eyes Downtown beat Legends.  Why is this enough for Bobby to take Joey’s spot at the top of the Power Rankings?  Legends is the most established and talented team in the League.  A few weeks ago, no one had ever heard of most of Bobby’s teammates.  It’s impressive!  Bobby gets the nod this week at #1.

#2 Joey Batts - Legends / Cunning Stunts

Last Week:  Beat What a Dump 36-12, lost to Eyes Downtown 39-37 (Legends), beat Becca Gets Reccked 44-26 (Stunts)

Imagine winning 15 games in a row for your D1 team, and then getting demoted in the Power Rankings when you FINALLY lose a game.  Doesn’t feel fair right?  Legends will be fine – barring a weird collapse (maybe Jeremy Burr demands to be starting Qb, and it fragments the team?) they’ll get a first round bye in the playoffs and be back in the D1 Championship game for a seventh consecutive season.  Oh, and the Stunts got their first ever D3 win this week.  Joey’s doing JUST FINE thanks.

 

#3 Mike Thomas – Sticky Bandits

Last Week:  Beat Frodo Swaggins 14-8

Fourteen is NOT a lot of points, but a win’s a win and the Sticky Bandits are 3-1 with Eyes Downtown right around the corner.  They’re never the trendy pick to win the division, but they’ve been in the last two D1 Finals so they always seem to figure something out in time for playoffs.  Mike is still the man… if Sticky Nation’s defense is as good as we saw last week, they might have a better shot than people think.

 

#4 Garrett Beesing - Frodo Swaggins

Last Week:  Lost to Sticky Bandits 14-8

Holding a great team to 14 points defensively is a great accomplishment.  Or at least it would have felt like a great accomplishment, if Frodo hadn’t scored only 8 themselves and lost.  Maybe this is what happens when two teams have played each other so many times and know all of each other’s tricks?  Frodo falls to 3-2 on the season, but the two teams they’re battling in the race for a playoff bye week are the two teams they face the next couple weeks, so at least they have some control over their fate.

 

#5 Ryan Dougherty - Can't Touch This

Last Week:  Did Not Play

Can’t Touch This has played one competitive game this season and one slaughter.  They’ve looked great in both, but is all this time off with bye weeks and forfeits going to hurt them down the line?

 

#6 Frank Laudico - Wanderers

Last Week:  Beat D-Generation X Y and Z 35-16

When was the last time the Wanderers lost a game?  Last Fall’s semifinals vs Passing While Intoxicated, we’re pretty sure.  And hey, PWI is the other undefeated team in D3 right now!  Division 3 has been the most wide open division in the TSL for the last few years now.  Is it turning into a two horse race now with Wanderers and PWI?  Ten teams, and somehow they’re the only two in the division that are over .500…

 

#7 Jordan Lawson – Freeballers / Mavericks

Last Week:  Lost to What A Dump 36-25 (Freeballers)

Freeballers losses this season: by 7, by 13, by 4, by 22, by 11.  No, we don’t have high hopes for them against Legends this week (our guess is a 30 point loss) but What A Dump is a winnable rematch in their next game.  And after that it’s the D2 crossover game vs… (checks current standings…) Show Me Your TDs?  There’s a VERY real chance that Freeballers finish the season with a positive point differential!

 

#8 Cody Stumpf – What a Dump

Last Week:  Beat Freeballers 36-25, lost to Legends 36-12

What a Dump locked up their first win of the season (or really, their first win ever) on Saturday in a battle of D1 winless teams, before dropping one to Legends.  No shame in that, everyone loses to Legends.  Any team with a new quarterback has to be patient as he develops… but how patient will THESE receivers be, since they’re used to being contenders every year?  Hopefully for Cody’s sake he gets at least a couple seasons to figure this starting QB thing out.

 

#9 Rhace Colon – The Malones

Last Week:  Lost to Scared Hitless 43-34

We understand the argument about the two tiers of teams in D2.  Can’t Touch This, Mavericks and Malones ARE essentially D1 teams, and Scared Hitless and Jabronies seem a step below them most of the time.  But last week was a great reminder: it’s not a very BIG step!  Scared Hitless (and Jabronies for that fact) ARE capable of winning games against The Big Three of D2, so no game should ever be considered “safe” in this division.  Other than Show Me Your TDs.  That feels pretty safe.

 

#10 Buddy Lee – Passing While Intoxicated / Interdimensional Lightning Falcons

Last Week:  Beat 716 57-34 (PWI), beat Bird Watching in my Birkenstocks 51-28 (ILF)

Buddy Lee dropped two 50 point games for two different teams last week and as a result we’ve got him sitting in the TSL Power Ranking’s Top Ten.  Interestingly EVERY person on our Committee had Buddy ranked tenth, which is unusual but makes us feel like we probably got this one right.  PWI and ILF are both in prime position to win their divisions, and the common denominator is their scrambling, hungover quarterback.

 

#11 Dylan Day - Scared Hitless

Last Week:  Beat The Malones 43-34

Just when everyone (including us!) was ready to write Scared Hitless off, they pulled off a big win over a great team on Saturday.  These guys have experience, speed, a TOP notch female player, and they’ve played enough games to not get rattled by a slow start.  Their next two opponents are a combined 1-5, so this team could be looking at a .500 record again before long.

 

#12 Alex Buchlis – Becca Gets Reccked

Last Week:  Lost to Cunning Stunts 44-26

After the top two teams in D3, the other eight are kind of a jumbled mess.  Becca Gets Reccked are 1-2 after losses to the Stunts and Wanderers, and attendance seems like it could be an issue for them again this session.  If this team is as good as we think they are, we would expect to see wins over Degeneration X Y and Z and GirthQuakes over the next couple of weeks.  They’re really going to have step up their play by June 7^th though if they want to have a chance against PWI.

 

#13 Brandon “B” Ford – Practice Squad / Tater Tots

Last Week:  Beat GirthQuakes 26-22 (Practice Squad), beat Mike’s Detailing 39-22, beat Come From Behind 40-22 (Tater Tots)

B’s teams gave up 22 points defensively in all three games he played on Saturday.  His offenses scored MORE than 22 each time, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get a 3-0 week (what a great example of the kind of brilliant insight that makes you want to read this article every week).  Both of B’s teams are in third place (yeah, D3 tiebreakers are weird right now) and it’s tough to say which one has a better path to a championship right now.  We’ll see Tater Tots, because they don’t have to beat Wanderers and PWI to win their division!

 

#14 Derek Pew - 716

Last Week:  Lost to PWI 57-34

716 is currently the sixth worst defense in the entire TSL (spoiler! We’re covering all of that stuff in the chart below the QB Rankings) as they’re allowing 39.75 PPG.  Woof.  Tough to win games when you need to put up forty every time just to have a chance.  716 is still a dangerous team when the whole roster shows up, but we’re not sure we’ve seen all of them play at once yet.

 

#15 Joe Miano - Jabronies

Last Week:  Did Not Play

No game for Jabronies this week.  Happy Birthday-ish Joe Miano!

 

#16 Dylan Jaloza – Bullet Club

Last Week:  Did Not Play

No game for Bullet Club this week.  Including forfeits, they are now the ONLY team in the League to have only played two games at this point in the season.  So we have NO idea if we’re rating Dylan too high or too low!

 

#17 Andy Clark – Buffalo Vice

Last Week:  Did Not Play

No game for Buffalo Vice this week.  They’re in last place in the D3 standings, but they have two winnable games this weekend that could get them back over .500.

 

#18 Damien Keller – D-Generation X Y and Z

Last Week:  Lost to Wanderers 35-16

So many “middle of the pack” D3 teams, it was tough for us to figure out how to rank all these QBs!  Point differential, points scored, win-loss record, quality of opponent, quality of receivers… it’s like splitting hairs with most of these.  Is Damien better than Andy Clark?  Maybe.  Is he better than Matt Kieta?  Maybe.  Should we hold it against DXYZ that they have Katie Keller and Travis and they’re still only 1-3?  Maybe.

 

#19 Matt Kieta - GirthQuakes

Last Week:  Lost to Practice Squad 26-22

GirthQuakes are sixth in the D3 standings somehow, but they have the tenth best win percentage?  Make that make sense to us, PLEASE.  Throw out their two losses to the best two teams in D3 though, and they have a 2 point win, a 1 point loss, and a 4 point loss.  They’re really a very middle of the pack D3 team right now, we’re amazed that their record is what it is is at this point in the season.

 

#20 Kyle Conniff – PowerPuff Girls

Last Week:  Did Not Play

PowerPuff Girls went 2-0 on Saturday without Kyle.  Hey, we’re only ranking how great these QBs are, not how essential they are to their team’s success!

 

Fancy Statistics Section

Okay.  We're here.  We kept saying "you're not getting any fancy statistics out of us until at LEAST Week Four, and even then, we'll tell you the sample size is too small to be meaningful".  Well, it's Week Four.  The sample size is TOO SMALL TO BE MEANINGFUL, but we'll give you some "fancy stats" anyway.

 

You've seen this chart before, but we always like to make it the first one (and last one) of the season.  Here are your best (and worst) offenses, defenses, and point differentials in the TSL through the first half of the season.  As always, forfeit games have been excluded from the numbers.

 

 

 

What did we learn?

 

For starters, Show Me Your TDs are significantly skewing the numbers by being outscored 137-0 through two games (they’ve had a bye week and a forfeit loss as well).  Not just the “worst team stats” listings, but also the two teams that have played against them are sitting pretty in the “best team stats” listings.  This might be a very talented team in the long run… but they did not belong in the same division as Can’t Touch This or Mavericks.

 

We also see that a gender team is near the top of the Best Offenses list, but for the first time in years, it’s NOT the Cunning Stunts!  PowerPuff Girls are also dominating the stats at the halfway mark of the season – this is another team that is maybe, probably, very likely playing in the wrong division in our mind.  Does anyone believe that they wouldn’t be at least a .500 team in D4?

 

When we think about teams that could (not SHOULD, but COULD) be playing up a division or down a division, we look at twenty as the magic (if not arbitrary) number: if you’re winning games by 20+ points on average (Can’t Touch This, PowerPuff Girls, Two Tuddies, Wanderers), you could probably be playing up a division.  If you’re losing by 20+ points on average (Mo’ Chicken, Cobblestone, Show Me Your TDs), you could probably be playing down a division.  Not to pile on Show Me Your TDs anymore than we already have, but they’re losing by an average of 68 points per game… if twenty is the magic number, then they could be playing down THREE divisions, which feels about right.

 

And how about Dogg Pound??  Last Fall they finished as the worst offense in the entire League.  Well, okay, they’re STILL in the bottom ten in offense in the League, but they are #1 in defense across all divisions!  That’s pretty cool, right? 

 

***

 

That's it for the TSL Power Rankings this week!  If you have any thoughts about QB rankings, or you want to make sure we know who's throwing for your team, please feel free to contact our good friend This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  You tell him, he'll tell us.  

 

What's YOUR ranking?