Last Week:  Lost to Legends 36-30

Bro finally lost,

We blame it on his brother,

Tight Ends still in first.

 

Last Week:  Beat Eyes Downtown 36-24

Big win for Sticky,

First win against top tier team.

Finals bound again?

 

Last Week:  Did Not Play

Replacements forfeit,

a massacre averted,

Hogan gets a win!

 

Last Week:  Tied Grey Hair - Don't Care 33-33

Grey Hair and Hitless,

Tied in their game and standings,

Which team is better?

 

Last Week:  Tied Scared Hitless 33-33

 

Last Week:  Beat DILFS 34-32

Freeballers balling,

Dylan's so underrated,

Can he win playoffs??

 

 

Last Week:  Lost to Frodo Swaggins 21-20

Last Week:  Beat Passed Our Prime 44-6, tied Grey Hair - Don't Care 31-31

 

Last Week:  Beat Scared Hitless 33-15, lost to Sticky Bandits 44-6

Passed Our Prime are no cowards.  They won D2 and moved up, knowing that it would cost them their two best players.  Then they scraped together just enough of a short-handed team this past week to beat Scared Hitless and move out of last place in the D1 standings.  Yes, they also got killed by the Sticky Bandits, but again, short-handed!  Hogan makes this team dangerous for playoffs.

 

Last Week:  Lost to Passed Our Prime 33-15

 

Last Week:  Tied Sticky Bandits 31-31

 

Last Week:  Lost to No Punt Intended 34-28

Underrated:  You already know they're great, but can we just remind people for the 10,000th time in this article that No Punt Intended is STILL undefeated against their own division with their starting QB present?  We'll copy and paste this from the QB Rankings above: "No Punt Intended's only two losses this season were a D1 crossover in their very first game as a team, and the week that Kyle wasn't in town".  Take away those two games (and of course a forfeit win over Untouchaballs which isn't included in the numbers above anyway) and their point differential per game rises from +8.13 PDPG to a whopping +18.8 PDPG... which would be the best in the entire TSL.  You know they're great and you're STILL underrating them.

 

Overrated:  Freeballers are third in the D2 standings which sounds like they should have a decent chance to compete for a championship... until you remember that their stats are padded by a 61-0 annihilation of The Replacements and a forfeit win over Untouchaballs.  They have two actual wins on the season not counting those games, both of which came against the DILFS, and a -7.2 PDPG if we toss out the Replacements massacre (which would drop them into "pretender" status on the chart above).  They'll probably beat Buffalo Vice Retro this weekend in our opinion... but that'll be the last game they win this session.

 

We Don't Know What The Hell They Are:  We didn't include them in either Overrated or Underrated above, but let's take a second to talk about the Untouchaballs, who had one of the weirdest seasons in recent memory.  Are they overrated?  Underrated?  We still have no idea!  They took two forfeit losses this season, another loss to Buffalo Vice Retro when Travis subbed at QB, another loss in a D1 Crossover game to TEIM, and they were the only team to play The Replacements twice.  Those last two games don't count (we don't mean to kick them when they're down, but the Replacements are not currently a competitive team in D2) so that means Untouchaballs only played three competitive games this session against teams they might meet again in the playoffs.  They've beaten a full-strength Buffalo Vice Retro by 18, lost to Frodo Swaggins by 2, and lost to DILFS by 2.  What are we supposed to make of that??  The Untouchaballs could make the Finals and it wouldn't shock us.  They could get wiped out in the first round and it wouldn't shock us.  Your guess is as good as ours.

 

Underrated:  How are we going to pick overrated and underrated teams in D3?? The best team in this division is winning by +8.3 PDPG.  The worst team is losing by -6.4 PDPG, only 14.7 PDPG worse than the best team.  Here's how that compares to other divisions, graphing the difference between the best and worst teams in each instance:

 

 

We modeled D2 with and without The Replacements because they're really throwing the comparison off in that division.  So, what's the point of this graph?  Essentially the taller the bar, the wider the gap between the best and worst teams in the division. And D3 is the shortest bar, which means it's the tightest division top to bottom.  With so many relatively even teams it's going to be splitting hairs to declare one "overrated" or "underrated", but we'll take a shot at this anyway...

The most underrated team in D3 is Practice Squad.  Why?  Because they're a #8 seed going up against a #1 seed this weekend that they've already played well against twice this season.  Practice Squad started the season with a 28-18 win against Mountain Dew Me, and then lost the very next week to the same opponent by a score of 33-32.  You think they're going to feel intimidated going up against a team they could easily be 2-0 against?  And what happens if they play well again and knock off the top team in their division?  The confidence boost could carry them to a second consecutive Finals game.  Look, we're not saying it's likely (Mountain Dew Me has improved tremendously since those first couple weeks) but we wouldn't give ANY division's lowest seeded playoff team better odds to win their division than Practice Squad.

 

Overrated:  Again, same story as above (if there aren't a lot of truly underrated teams, you won't see a lot of truly overrated teams) but we'll take Scott Senior's Starting as the most overrated team here based solely on their recent trend.  As we said in the QB Rankings above, they're a narrow Bullet Club loss away from a five-game losing streak to end the season, and they've surrendered an average of 37.8 PPG defensively over that stretch.  That's not the type of momentum you want right now going into the playoffs.  

 

 

Last Week:  Beat Scared Hitless 44-14

Tight Ends in Motion are winning by an average of 23.6 PPG, far and away the best in the League.  And these are great teams they're beating!  Bro remains the unquestioned #1 in the Power Rankings this week with #2 Joey Batts and Legends on deck for Saturday.

 

Last Week:  Beat The Replacements 49-14

There's not much to learn about a QB from destroying the worst team in the division below him, but Mike Thomas goes up in the Power Rankings anyway with a Frodo Swaggins loss.  The Sticky Bandits ended their three-game losing streak (all to the QBs above Mike in the Rankings) to get a much-needed win going into the ladder match weeks.

 

 

Last Week:  Did Not Play

Happy birthday Hogan... Hopefully your family threw you a better party than Eyes Downtown!  Yeah, we know, Hogan wasn't there last week so his team lost without him.  The reigning D2 champs still have only one win on the season way back in August, but we suspect they'll earn another this week against The Replacements.  

 

Last Week:  Lost to Tight Ends in Motion 44-14

We keep writing every week about how Scared Hitless is RIGHT in it every week and how they hadn't lost by more than a score all season.  Well, they lost by 30 on Saturday, but that'll happen against the best team in the League.  The ladder match weeks should be kinder to Dylan, who could easily still finish 4-5 before playoffs.

 

Last Week:  Did Not Play

No game for Grey Hair last week, but they must be excited about playing Scared Hitless this week, as it's the only D1 team they've beaten so far this season.

 

Last Week:  Beat Scott Seniors Starting 55-46, beat Mountain Dew Me 29-28 (716)

Can we just say Dylan is the starter for 716 now??? It feels like he goes in every time there's trouble.  84 points, two wins, that's a good weekend.  716 is now the highest scoring team in D3 at 34.5 PPG.  

The Greatest Male Players (Non-QB) in the TSL

 

If our Greatest Female Players rankings from a couple weeks ago were any indication, it seems like no one is ever happy with their ranking.  We expect more of the same from this week's Greatest Male Players rankings.  We'll try to recognize you by ranking you above 90% of your peers (that is the point of this segment after all), you'll complain we didn't recognize you ENOUGH by ranking you ahead of everyone else, and then you'll bitch about how we don't know what we're talking about, how this is all just a popularity contest and biased against you because blah blah blah.  Oh, and you probably didn't even respond to our numerous requests to send in your votes and let your voice be heard, did you?  You had your chance.  We're sorry your peers don't think you're as good as you do.  Just keep in mind when you're whining to your friends and teammates about your rank, they're probably thinking "at least he GOT ranked, why does no one ever notice me?".

 

With that said, here's a reminder of what we're looking for on our "Greatest Male Players (Non-QB)" list:

 

• Speed, hands, pass rushing, any kind of playmaking ability; we're not prioritizing one specific skill over another, we're trying to rank the best male players that would improve your chance of winning if they were on your team.
• Attitude and personality doesn't factor in UNLESS that player's intangibles are extremely great (motivational, positive teammates lift everyone up) or extremely bad (toxic complainers will bring a team down even if they have elite skills)
• They must be actively playing this session.  No, being on a roster and never showing up (or missing half the season so far) doesn't count. If you're not playing regularly, you're not eligible.
• If you happen to add versatility as your team's backup QB, that's truly helpful for your team and they're lucky to have that from you.  But it doesn't factor into our rankings.

 

So that's our criteria.  In past sessions (and even the Female Rankings a couple weeks ago) we've done write ups for each person to say why they deserve to be ranked as high as they are, but this time we're just going to list the names.  Why is that you ask?  Because... you're all ungrateful, and you're just going to complain about how you should have been ranked higher anyway!  Ungrateful players don't deserve write-ups saying how great they are.  Do we sound a little bitter?  DO WE???

 

That being said, here are the Top 25 Male (Non-QB) Players in the League according to our panel of experts (and including the feedback of people who DID write in):

 

#25: Ron Webber - TMA

 

#24: Anthony Deak - Bullet Club, Travis Henry's Kids

 

#23: George Lombardo - Grey Hair - Don't Care, Freeballers

 

#22: Kevin Zack - Sticky Bandits

 

#21: Dave Baker - Tight Ends in Motion, Freeballers

 

#20: James Celotto - Passed Our Prime, 716

 

#19: Matt Helm - Untouchaballs

 

#18: Pete Walbrandt - Bullet Club, Travis Henry's Kids

 

#17: Ben Stack - Eyes Downtown

 

#16: Pete Nguyen - Legends

 

#15: Jonny Yioulos - Scared Hitless

 

#14: Blake Fisher - Frodo Swaggins

 

#13: Travis Cleavenger - Legends, DILFS

 

#12: Drew Colosimo - Sticky Bandits

 

#11: Chris Nelson - Legends

 

#10: Nick Voss - Grey Hair - Don't Care, 716

 

#9: Eric Delecki - Eyes Downtown

 

#8: Ralph Finney - Passed Our Prime

 

#7: Andy Smigiera - Eyes Downtown

 

#6: Kyle Conniff - Tight Ends in Motion, No Punt Intended

 

#5: Adrian Cannon - Sticky Bandits, TOX

 

#4: Dave Gdaniec - Tight Ends in Motion

 

#3: Mike Boccio - Legends

 

#2: Derek Bongiovanni - Tight Ends in Motion

 

#1: Sean Weisensal - Legends, Frodo Swaggins

 

The biggest complaint we got last season was that we ranked "too many" Tight Ends in Motion guys.  Guess what?  They're 7-0 this season with their longtime QB back under center.  Maybe we DID know what we were talking about...

 

So here's our challenge to you now: if you're going to complain about these Rankings, don't just say they were "bullshit" or "biased" or "all the same old people".  And don't just say "person X should have been WAY higher".  Put your money where your mouth is (so to speak) and send us your OWN list.  We'll be happy to publish it next week, with your name attached as the creator, and we'll see if people think you did any better.