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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 49 teams in the TSL this season!  Are you going to show rankings for all 49 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.  We no longer have our own email address due to some legal restructuring stuff, so if you want to tell us about your QB, why not email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and introduce yourself?  And please, 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, so if you're running up the score to try to get noticed... well, that only makes you an asshole!  We don't put a lot of stock in the stats from Breakfast Club and don't factor that into 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.  

 

“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): 

• Legends do NOT win the D1 championship for a record fourth straight season
• There will be at least one gender team vs gender team Finals.  We're counting GUCCI as a gender team here to give us some more flexibility, but we'll either seen Father Baker vs Cunning Stunts or BAADies vs GUCCI in a championship game this Fall.
• No one goes winless this season.  Yes, we made that prediction last Spring and got it wrong (twice) but we feel much better about it this time!
• Frodo Swaggins has the worst record of any returning team in D1, but they will make their division's Final Four.
• Freeballers will play in (and maybe win, but that's not an "official" prediction) the D2 Championship game
• Steph's Misty-rious Infection beats the Dirty Dozen in the Breakfast Club Finals

 

But what do we know?  We went 2 out of 6 on last year's predictions:

• Buffalo Vice will shock the world and win the D4 championship.  Why not??  It's their time!! [It wasn't their time.  They were really good, and they made it to the semi-finals, but the D4 championship (as it so often does) went to Puckett All-Stars]
• Last season the Replacements were the only winless team in the League.  This season, every team will be good enough to win at least ONE game. [They weren't.  Practice Squad went 0-8 before winning a playoff game, so they narrowly avoided going winless.  But both Creekers and Back That Pass Up didn't win a single game last session.  Creekers was in the wrong division, and already have a win under their belts this Fall.  Back That Pass Up was in the right division, but just couldn't pull off a W.]
• Eyes Downtown end their recent championship drought and take home the D1 title. [They didn't.  Another D1 championship game, another loss to Legends.]
• Steph Infection does NOT three-peat as Breakfast Club Championship.  Give someone else a turn. [We got this one right!  Congrats to BDSM for taking home the title last season.  Sean is pretty good at this football stuff.]
• Joey Batts does NOT three-peat as the #1 ranked QB by our last Power Ranking of the year.  Please, God, give someone else a turn. [He repeated as the D1 champion, which is all he cares about we're sure.  But he did NOT finish #1 in last season's Power Rankings, as that honor went to Mike Thomas who went undefeated throughout the regular season.]
• GrASS Eaters beat Southside in the D6 championship game.  Take that one to the bank. [We picked the correct winner, AND we picked them beating Southside... only problem is GrASS Eaters beat Southside in the Semifinals, and Two Tuddies in the Finals.  So we can't give ourselves credit for this one either.]

 

So there you go.  Let's get to the first QB Power Rankings of the Fall 2023 Season.  Most of our stars are back, although we have a few notable player movements:

• Two D1 teams have folded this session, so you won't see Andy Smigiera or Dave Eickhoff in the Power Rankings this session
• Jabronies is also not returning for Fall session so another Top Ten QB in Joe Miano will not be back
• Mark Dalfonso returns for THREAD after a nearly three year absence.  He was consistently one of the best QBs in the League for D1 champs Marketing Mayors in the past, so we expect to see him in the Top Ten in no time.
• Jeremy "Hogan" Olsen is back and throwing for Freeballers this session.  He won a D2 championship already with Passed Our Prime, so he's already shown he can do it.

 

As always, we do NOT overreact to one week's worth of games in our first Power Rankings of the season.  Mike Thomas and Joey Batts (at least for Legends) didn't even play last week - you think we're going to remove them from the top two spots?  Not a chance.  You also won't see people like Mark Dalfonso at all this week because we need a larger sample size to see how some of these changes play out.  Sorry if you don't like it, but if people are good enough, their stock will rise quickly and we'll get them Ranked over the next few weeks.  

 

Here are your Top Ten starting QBs in the TSL:

 

#1 Mike Thomas - Sticky Bandits

Last Week:  Did Not Play

No game for last season's #1 ranked QB, as the Sticky Bandits will open their season against Frodo Swaggins next week.

 

#2 Joey Batts - Legends / Cunning Stunts

Last Week:  Beat Puckett All-Stars 44-40

Legends may have started the season with a bye week (actually they're starting with two in a row) but Cunning Stunts started strong with a win over D4's reigning and defending champions Puckett-All Stars.  The Stunts should be extra dangerous this season with Katie Salisbury.  Is this a springboard to Joey luring her over to Legends?

 

#3 Bobby McConnell - Eyes Downtown

Last Week:  Beat Losing Streak 34-24, beat Frodo Swaggins 50-23

The new-look Eyes Downtown have added a bunch of talent (they also kept Blase for some reason?) and the early returns have been exactly what we expected.  Bobby's teams have often started slow and finished strong in recent seasons.  If this is a "slow" start for them, then their finish could just be another D1 title.  

 

#4 Jordan Lawson - Losing Streak / Mavericks

Last Week:  Beat Frodo Swaggins 58-29, lost to Eyes Downtown 34-24 (Losing Streak), lost to Untouchaballs 58-50 (Mavericks)

Jordan had two 50 point performances in his first week across both teams, and has just a 1-2 record to show for it.  Not super encouraging for the Mavericks that they can't play defense, but it's maybe not a bad sign that they hung with Eyes Downtown so well.  Losing Streak and Eyes Downtown play each other again next week (yes, D1 is not a very big division) and a win in the rematch would take a lot of pressure off of Losing Streak in the standings.

 

#5 Garrett Beesing - Frodo Swaggins / BAADies

Last Week:  Lost to Eyes Downtown 50-23, lost to Losing Streak 58-29 (Frodo), lost to GUCCI 44-16, beat Not So Sticky 44-30 (BAADies)

Frodo Swaggins was the feel-good story of D1 last session, but this summer saw two of the "easier" opponents in that division fold while Scared Hitless moved down to D2.  All that's left for Frodo are the heavy hitters every week, and most of THOSE teams reloaded by robbing the corpses of the teams that died.  Could be a long session for Frodo if they can't stop an opponent from scoring 50 points against them.  BAADies might fare better in D5 (GUCCI aside) as Garrett knows how to get his girls involved more than most QBs in this League.

 

#6 Jeremy Burr - Untouchaballs

Last Week:  Beat Mavericks 58-50, beat Cle-Avengers Assemble 39-22

Untouchaballs lost in the championship game last Fall in a division that they should have won (in their minds at least).  They looked incredibly motivated to right that wrong on Saturday, handily beating Travis's newest D2 contender and dropping 58 on Mavericks to start the season 2-0.  We don't think it's too early to call Untouchaballs the favorites in D2 this session.

 

#7 Ryan Dougherty - Can't Touch This

Last Week:  Beat Cle-Avengers Assemble 48-33

It's too early to tell ANYTHING about this season of course, but one week in it definitely LOOKS like Can't Touch This will be okay after moving up to D2.  Ryan dropped 48 points on some VERY good players Saturday, and this is a team that doesn't look like they want to chalk Fall 2023 up to a "learning season" -- they plan to win right now.

 

#8 Dylan Day - Scared Hitless

Last Week:  Beat THREAD 26-25, beat Practice Squad 36-22

Scared Hitless struggled to compete in D1 last season after some female roster turnover and made the decision to drop down to D2 this Fall.  So far they seem right at home, having already won more games this season than they did last Fall.  Of course it probably helps to start the season against a team that hasn't played in three years and a team that didn't win a game in the Spring regular season, but Dylan doesn't make the schedule, he just beats teams on it.

#9 Travis Cleavenger - Cle-Avengers Assemble

Last Week:  Lost to Untouchaballs 39-22, lost to Can't Touch This 48-33

Travis's latest D2 project is Cle-Avengers Assemble, and they're off to a rather slow start right now having dropped their opening games against Untouchaballs and Can't Touch This.  But if we can loosely steal an Avengers quote here (and we will), "this was never going to work if they didn't have something to avenge".

 

#10 Frank Laudico - Wanderers

Last Week:  Did Not Play

No games for the Wanderers this week, so Frank Laudico rises into the Top Ten based solely on the "retirements" of Eickhoff, Smigiera and Miano.

 

 

Fancy Statistics Section

Yeah, right.  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 (yes, we're going to copy/paste this line next week too, so get used to it)

 

 

That's it for the TSL Power Rankings this week!  As we said above, we don't currently have our own email address anymore, so 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?

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