Welcome back to the TSL Quarterback Power Rankings!  If you've read our article in the past (if for no other reason than to complain about how wrong we are) then you’re familiar with the concept – every week we share our rankings for the Top QBs in the League and discuss who’s trending up and who's trending down.  We on the QB Power Rankings Committee are not what you'd call "great writers" (or even "very good" writers... check out the Godfather if you want better writing) so we typically lean heavily on graphs and stats instead... at least, we do after a few weeks, when there's significant enough data to bother sharing.  In our season opening articles we also make a few predictions for the session and re-print an explanation of how these Power Rankings work, which we've copied and pasted almost verbatim from previous articles.

 

So a little Q&A to refresh your memories:

 

“There are 50 teams in the TSL this season!  Are you going to show rankings for all 50 starting QB’s every week?”

Not even close.  At minimum, the Top Ten will be shown EVERY week.  We always expand as the season goes on, so you'll see a Top 15, Top 20... last season we got to a Top 30, so we do try to be inclusive.

 

“Is this going to be heavily biased towards the higher divisions?”

In a word: yes.  The purpose of a Power Ranking is to highlight the absolute best in the League, and for the most part the best are competing AGAINST the best.  We will absolutely be acknowledging the performances (good and bad) of Quarterbacks in the lower divisions as well, but it's rare that a lower division QB will crack the Top Ten or Fifteen, and that's the way it should be.  Generally speaking if you don't like your ranking, our advice is to try moving up a division next session.  The better your competition, the more credibility you earn for beating it.

 

"Are gender team QBs treated differently in the Rankings?"

Not really.  A team's a team, and although gender team scores tend to be a little higher (every TD = minimum 8 points) we don't see much difference.  It takes skill to win with men; it takes skill to win with women.  The biggest knock on gender teams is that they tend to play in lower divisions and as we said above, we do factor THAT into our rankings.

 

"How are you ranking backup QBs if they come in and play better than some other team's starter?"

Generally we're only ranking one QB per team, even if you've got a player on your bench that you think could be a successful starter elsewhere.  And for teams with unreliable QBs who don't show up often enough for us to even KNOW who the starter is, we often leave them out of our rankings entirely... as they say, the best "ability" is "availability".  If you want to get ranked, show up and play as often as you can.  

 

"I'm new to this League and people don't know me yet!  How do I get ranked when I'm still an unknown?"

For starters, you should play really well.  If you're scoring a lot of points, we WILL notice you.  There are several new teams this session, so we probably DON'T know who you all are yet.  Email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to introduce yourself, and please, be patient.  If you're the highest scoring team in the League in Week 2, that doesn't mean we're anointing you as the next Bobby McConnell just yet.  Keep at it, play well, and we promise eventually we will recognize you.

 

"What about Breakfast Club QBs?"

Breakfast Club is for fun, not crushing your opponents.  We don't put a lot of stock in the stats from Breakfast Club, and typically don't include it in our Rankings.

 

“So you’re only ranking QB’s… what about the rest of us?”

Oh, we didn’t forget about the rest of you.  In addition to the QB Rankings, we will do our best to put out other rankings that the rest of you can enjoy – best team offenses, best team defenses, best referees, best male receivers, best female receivers, best at bar …  ranking anything is always fun.  Unless we rank you last, of course.  Unlike previous years where we just sort of threw out random rankings throughout the season, we're going to TRY to keep a little more structure this session.  See a list of dates below for what we plan to rank each week (besides, of course, quarterbacks).

 

“You keep saying ‘we’.  Who is writing this?  Who determines these rankings?”

Don’t worry about who’s writing this.  Let’s be honest: If you knew who was on our Committee (there's a few of us), you would incessantly whine to them about why you or your QB should be ranked higher every week.  Anonymity is key for journalism THIS important.  

 

And that's how the Power Rankings work.  We expect it's going to be an incredible season, with fifty-ish teams battling for TSL supremacy.  Our official predictions for this year (with the benefit of one week already being in the books, of course): 

• None of our Spring 2022 Division Champions will repeat and win again this Fall.  Not the five that won and bravely moved up a division, and not Legends in D1.
• No "new" teams will finish with a winning record.  We're looking at you, No Punt Intended, Replacements, Get Shwifty, Let's Get Reccked, Superior Moser Squad and Punt Cakes.  
• Tight Ends in Motion rebounds from last season's terrible record to finish as one of the top three seeds in D1.
• No team has finished undefeated in at LEAST six seasons... and we predict the trend holds up for a seventh.  Expect every team to lose at least one game this session.
• Can't Touch This, currently 0-2 as we write this, will make it to the D3 Championship game (we make no predictions whether they'll win or lose it).
• TOX and Vaspian will be the only TSL teams not to make the playoffs this session.

 

But what do we know?  We went 3 out of 6 on last year's predictions:

• There are no undefeated teams in any divisions, but at least one team will go winless [We were spot on!  Zero undefeated teams, while both Two Tuddies (who had a tie) and Bullet Club (who did not have a tie) went winless]
• Spinelli's Plumbing wins a championship for the second season in a row [Nope.  They went 4-5 and were knocked out in the first round by the eventual champions Practice Squad]
• Passed Our Prime will be the highest scoring team in the TSL this season across all divisions[Nope.  They finished as the 21st highest scoring team in the TSL so we were way off here... but they DID win a shocking D2 championship, so we were right to believe in Hogan, if not in the consistency of this team]
• There will be exactly three different QBs to reach #1 in our Power Rankings this season [Nailed it with this one... of course it helps that we determine the rankings, so we could have rigged this one if we wanted.  Joey Batts, Mike Thomas and Bobby McConnell each reigned on top of the Power Rankings for at least a week last session]
• Zack Attack finishes with the #1 defense in the League [Zack Attack was one of only four teams who finished last season allowing under 20 points per game... but TMA finished with the best defense in the League, so we were wrong here]
• Steph Infection beats Liddle Deaks in the Breakfast Club finals[YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.  We correctly called the winner and the runner-up of Breakfast Club last session.]
• TMA makes, and loses, the D5 Finals game this session [Why do we bet on TMA?  The D5 finals was Red Zone Mafia over Cobblestone]  

 

So there you go.  Let's get to the first QB Power Rankings of the Spring 2022 Season.  Most of our stars are back, although we have a few notable player movements:

• Bro Kleckler, the eight-time #1 ranked QB for Tight Ends in Motion, is back this session after taking the Spring off.  Seth Molisani, who had replaced Bro, will still be QBing for Buffalo Vice Retro, the D2 offshoot of D4 Buffalo Vice.
• Freeballers and Bullet Club flipped divisions this session, but it looks like Dylan Jaloza will only be throwing for D2 Freeballers now.  Bullet Club will allegedly turn back to long-time ace / team founder Jeff Easton at QB.
• When Dove Cries is not putting in a team this session, which means Topper's unbelievable streak (literally unbelievable; we track this stuff, and we don't believe it) of making our Top Ten every season since we began Power Ranking will come to an end.  Unless of course Legends benches Joey mid-season and calls on Topper to take over.

 

We started the Fall 2022 session with only half our teams playing, so not a huge amount of movement in our Top Ten yet.  Let's see where we are to start the season!

 

 

#1 Joey Batts - Legends / Cunning Stunts

Last Week:  Beat Grey Hair - Don't Care 44-16 (Legends), beat Puckett All-Stars 51-44 (Cunning Stunts)

Joey picked up where he left off a couple months ago, winning games and talking shit.  Will all this "QB is Legends only weakness" talk go away now that he's won the big one, or is that a storyline we're going to hear about all season?

 

#2 Mike Thomas - Sticky Bandits

Last Week:  Did Not Play

No game for last season's #2, who was second in total TSL points per game, the second seed in D1, second place in the playoffs, and second in our Power Rankings.

 

#3 Bobby McConnell - Eyes Downtown

Last Week:  Did Not Play

Eyes Downtown start the Fall season with a bye and will open next week against Tight Ends in Motion.

 

#4 Brandt Dubey - DILFS

Last Week:  Beat the Replacements 53-14

Did we learn anything we didn't already know about Dubey or the DILFS from watching them destroy a brand new team that probably has no business being in D2?  Probably not, but a tune-up game never hurts.

 

#5 Jeremy "Hogan" Olson - Passed Our Prime

Last Week:  Did Not Play

Who is Hogan throwing to now that he's lost Kyle Conniff and Sean Battaglia (why not, it seems like he's officially been adopted by Joey at this point)?  We'll find out next week.

 

#6 Dylan Day - Scared Hitless

Last Week:  Lost to Grey Hair - Don't Care 34-24

Grey Hair shut out Scared Hitless 14-0 last season and beat them in their first ever game in D1 to start this season.  Seems like Eickhoff and company have Dylan's number... but we still have Dylan ranked just a little higher.

 

#7 Dave Eickhoff - Grey Hair - Don't Care

Last Week:  Beat Scared Hitless 34-24, lost to Legends 44-16

The good news is that Grey Hair - Don't Care picked up their first win in D1 on their first day in the division.  The bad news is their loss against Legends wasn't particularly close, which shows how wide the gap might be between the top D1 teams and the new teams that just moved up.

 

#8 Jeremy Burr - Untouchaballs

Last Week:  Did Not Play

Untouchaballs had the week off to start the Fall season.  They annihilated D3 most of last season... will they even be a top three team in D2 this session?

 

#9 Garrett Beesing - Frodo Swaggins

Last Week:  Beat the Replacements 65-18

Garrett has a bunch of new toys to play with this session and the results were exactly what we expected in Week One, but like we wrote for DILFS above, we won't draw too many conclusions until we see Frodo play a team other than The Replacements.

 

#10 Scott Drosendahl - Scott Seniors Starting

Last Week:  Beat Can't Touch This 42-35, beat Get Schwifty 40-14

Ahh it's time once again for our bi-annual tradition of Scotty starting hot, winning a bunch of games and putting up great numbers, then collapsing in the second half of the season.  So far they're on schedule with a 2-0 record... what will they do differently this season to avoid the usual collapse?

 

So that's a look at where we stand after one week.  As always, we will expand coverage throughout the season to cover more and more QBs, but it's difficult when seemingly half the League hasn't played a game yet AND we're not even sure who's throwing for every team yet.  We'll get there.

 

**

 

For all you TSL history buffs out there that want to know QB Power Rankings data stretching back before the Top Ten chart shown above, here is the entire history of the Top Ten going back the past six seasons that we've been Power Ranking (season three being shortened by one week due to COVID issues):

 

 

UGLY chart (and it gets uglier every session we do this)... but thorough!  This is our summary version of the above, showing cumulative points for the last six seasons for every QB who has EVER cracked the Top Ten.  Here's how it works: you get 10 points for a first place week, 1 point for a tenth place week, and zero points for not making the Top Ten at all that week.  Active QBs (as far as we know) are highlighted in gold so you can see who has the best chance to move up this season.  Gives you a fairly accurate sense of who our top QBs have been over the past six seasons we think (obviously biased towards people that have been here the longest over that stretch):

 

 

**

And finally, here is our schedule for what we plan to rank this season OTHER than just our usual QB Rankings.  If you have feedback ahead of these articles and you want to weigh in, you can always email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  If you email us AFTER the fact to complain about how much you hated them, we'll just tell you that you should have let us know sooner!

 

• September 15: Best Female Players in the League
• September 22: Best at Bar (Individuals, Not Teams)
• September 29: Best Male Players (Non-QB) in the League
• October 6: Division All-Star Teams Announced

 

***

 

That's it for this week!  As always, if you have any thoughts on why you hate this article (your team’s QB should be ranked higher?  you want to see those "Best in the League" graphs while your team is riding a hot 1-0 start to the season?  you hate that we basically copy/paste the first article of every season from the previous season with very little original thought?) please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..    Seriously, we can do this BETTER if you TELL us about your team!

 

What’s YOUR ranking?