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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 51 teams in the TSL this season!  Are you going to show rankings for all 51 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 Mike Thomas 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): 

 

• PowerPuff Girls take the #1 seed in the D5 regular season... but they don't win the D5 Championship game
• Bullet Club and Toppers All-Stars & Todd repeat this session as needing play-in games to make the D3 playoffs (and this time, Topper doesn't forfeit!)
• Joey Batts wins exactly one championship this Fall session
• The Malones play in, but lose, the D2 Championship game
• Day by Day will win the D6 Championship this Fall.  You heard it here first.
• Cobblestone will forfeit at least one OTHER game this season (besides the one they forfeited on Saturday)

 

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

• Wanderers win their first ever TSL championship, and we'll even guess the score is 30 something to 30 something in the D3 Finals [They didn't make it past the first round...  Playoff B saw to that.]
• Whoever wins D2 will buck the trend and actually jump to D1 in the Fall... stranger things have happened! [God bless America and God bless the fearless Freeballers! We got this one right]
• At least one brand new team will make it to their division's Finals game [Does Stir the Sauce count as a "brand new team"?  Probably not, they have a very Woodpeckerish feel to them.  No new teams made the finals last session]
• GUCCI finally shake off their underperforming in the playoffs and take home the D5 championship [Wrong again, as they were eliminated in controversial fashion in the semi-finals last Spring]
• The Rose Garden WILL begin construction before the end of the Spring session! [They put the stakes in the ground, right?  Alright, that's not enough to count]
• No D6 team will finish with more than 6 wins in the regular season [D6 was an excellent division last Spring, and we got this right.  Pit Harade finished with six wins, no one else had more than five]

 

So there you go.  Let's get to the first QB Power Rankings of the Fall 2024 Season.  

 

As always, we do NOT overreact to one week's worth of games in our first Power Rankings of the season.  Bobby McConnell lost on Saturday - you think he's going to fall very far in the Rankings?  Not a chance.  You also might not see many new people yet 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:  Beat Freeballers 37-29

Last season's D1 champion earned the right to start the QB Power Rankings on the top, and Thomas did not disappoint.  The Sticky Bandits scored on every drive except a kneel down at the end, and while they still may not be considered "the team to beat in D1" by many, Mike is clearly the best quarterback in the League (for now).

 

#2 Joey Batts - Wet Bandits / Cunning Stunts

Last Week:  Beat Eyes Downtown 39-34, beat Grey Hair - Don't Care 57-22 (Wet Bandits), beat The Herd 52-24

A win over their greatest rival plus two 50+ point games (both wins) is the start we expected from Joey Batts.  Wet Bandits (always trolling the champs, lately) and Cunning Stunts are both considered heavy favorites with Battaglia taking snaps.

 

#3 Bobby McConnell - Eyes Downtown

Last Week:  Lost to Wet Bandits 39-34

Why must these Eyes Downtown and Wet Bandits always play each other in Week One?  This season with all the D2 crossover games we won't see a rematch until possibly playoffs, so bragging rights elude Bobby for now.  We suspect they'll do better next week.

 

#4 Andy Strug - The Malones

Last Week:  Beat Scared Hitless 43-28

Literally the only knock on Andy to date has been that the Malones aren't playing against the best teams in the League.  Now they are, and they're 1-0 in the D1/D2 Super Crossover Division... and STILL scoring points like crazy.  It's been hard to imagine anyone cracking the Thomas/Battaglia/McConnell top three for a while now, but Andy has a shot.

 

#5 Garrett Beesing - Frodo Swaggins

Last Week:  Beat Can't Touch This 34-29

It's tough to show exactly how great you are at QBing when the only other teams in your division are stacked beyond belief.  Frodo may have finished with a disappointing record last season, but they're still among the best in the League, and now they'll get to showcase that more in some D2 crossover games.  Frodo held on to beat Can't Touch This, and Garrett is 1-0 for the first time in a long time.

 

#6 Jordan Lawson - Mavericks

Last Week:  Did Not Play

No games for Mavericks.  What's the over/under on the number of D1 teams they beat this session in Crossover games?

 

#7 Jeremy Burr - Untouchaballs

Last Week:  Did Not Play

No game for the Untouchaballs this week.  Don't they usually start with byes and horrible losses, just to finish strong anyway?

 

#8 Ryan Dougherty - Can't Touch This

Last Week:  Lost to Frodo Swaggins 34-29

Ryan might have been undefeated against D1 teams until this past weekend (did they go 1-0 against Frodo last session?) and he almost made it 2-0.  Can't Touch This will be fine this season.  They may not have the big names of a Wet Bandits roster, but they have the best pure passer in the League.

 

#9 Frank Laudico - Wanderers

Last Week:  Beat Jabronies 28-24, beat Bullet Club 53-29

A 2-0 start (including a big tiebreaker win over Jabronies) and no Malones in their division?  Sounds like a formula for a D3 championship to us.  We've bet on the Wanderers every season so far (what? there are no rules against betting) and they've fallen short in the playoffs three times.  But if Frank and Sal can keep their momentum going all season, maybe they'll escape the playoff jinx this year.

 

 #10 Dylan Day - Scared Hitless

Last Week:  Lost to The Malones 43-28

Scared Hitless lost to the Malones.  So has everyone else who has played them this year.  Probably not a big deal, we're thinking.  Dylan and team will be fine against D2 teams, although we're not sure we'd bet on them to beat the top D1 teams this session.

 

 

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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