Login Form

Weather

 

 

Welcome back to the TSL Quarterback Power Rankings -- Come for the QB write-ups, stay for the weird and confusing graphs!
 
 
#1 Mike Thomas - Sticky Bandits
Last Week:  Beat Tight Ends in Motion 38-12, beat Frodo Swaggins 40-25
After two dominant wins by Thomas this week, who else did you think was going to be in the #1 spot?  The Sticky Bandits are the only undefeated team left in the TSL across ANY division, and Legends are the only team that's held them to under 30 points all season.  Considering no team has dropped 30 against the Bandits yet (strangely Grey Hair and Frodo, who are a combined 3-10, have come the closest by scoring 27 and 25 respectively) that's a pretty good recipe for a winning record.
 
#2 Joey Batts - Legends / Cunning Stunts
Last Week:  Beat Eyes Downtown 36-30 (Legends), beat Travis Henry's Kids 52-40
Joey Batts went 0-2 in the month of April, and 8-1 in the month of May.  He claps cheeks best when it's warm out, apparently.  Legends are locked into one of the top seeds in D1, and the Stunts have their first winning record of the season after beating Travis Henry's Kids in a revenge game after THK eliminated them from the playoffs last Fall.
 
#3 Jordan Lawson - Losing Streak / Mavericks
Last Week:  Did Not Play
No games for Jordan this week.  
 
#4 Bobby McConnell - Eyes Downtown
Last Week:  Lost to Legends 36-30, beat Scared Hitless 29-26
Eyes Downtown are 3-3 and as the calendar turns to June, they still have not had a winning record at any point this season.  On Saturday they almost pulled off the upset over Legends in a rematch of last Fall's Finals, and then almost lost to 1-5 Scared Hitless, so we're STILL not sure what to make of their squad this season.  
 
 
#5 Garrett Beesing - Frodo Swaggins / BAADies
Last Week:  Beat Scared Hitless 41-24, lost to Sticky Bandits 40-25 (Frodo Swaggins), beat Travis Henry's Kids 60-32 (BAADies)
BAADies looked like the disappointment of the year after an 0-3 start despite all the hype that it was essentially the return of "The Angels".  That probably wasn't fair -- it was truly a new team with Garrett under center, and it was always going to take time to gel.  Three consecutive wins later, BAADies are back to .500 and suddenly look like real contenders in D4, which is a huge credit to Garrett and his ladies for pushing through the growing pains.  Oh and Frodo won another D1 game (by a lot) which pushes the League Douche up in the Power Rankings this week.
 
#6 Jeremy Burr - Untouchaballs
Last Week:  Beat No Punt Intended 41-17
Okay, so maybe Helm did MOST of the work with his multiple pick-sixes on Saturday, but Burr was pretty good too as the Untouchaballs avenged their only loss of the season and took firm control over the #1 seed in D2.  Seeding doesn't really matter that much most of the time when everyone makes the playoffs, but in D2 three teams get a bye in the first round, and by beating No Punt Intended the Untouchaballs have clinched a top three finish and a week off on June 17th.
 
#7 Travis Cleavenger - No Punt Intended
Last Week:  Lost to Untouchaballs 41-17
What a meltdown for Travis against Untouchaballs!  Is it time to throw Kyle back in yet?  Fortunately No Punt Intended is still 5-2 and have already clinched a first round bye for playoffs.  Odds are they've lost the #1 seed based on this past week, which would potentially set up NPI vs Mavericks in the Semis barring some weird outcomes the next couple of weeks.  
 
#8 Dave Eickhoff - Grey Hair - Don't Care
Last Week:  Did Not Play
No games for Dave this week.  
 
#9 Dylan Day - Scared Hitless
Last Week:  Lost to Eyes Downtown 29-26, lost to Frodo Swaggins 41-24
Scared Hitless certainly looks to have recovered from their early season ineptitude as they're now actually scoring points and playing competitive games.  Of course it didn't matter in the standings, as they dropped both games of an Eyes Downtown / Frodo Swaggins doubleheader on Saturday to fall to 1-5 on the season.  Their last two opponents are Tight Ends in Motion (who S.H. upset in the first round of last years playoffs) and Grey Hair Don't Care (the only D1 team with a worse record) so a 3-5 finish isn't out of the question.
 
#10 Frank Laudico - Wanderers
Last Week:  Did Not Play
No games for Frank (at least with Wanderers) this week.
 
#11 Alex Buchlis - Let's Get Reccked
Last Week:  Beat Degeneration SeXy 50-40
Let's Get Reccked has been anything but boring this session.  After a week one annihilation of (now) division-leading Jabronies, they've played five straight one score games going 2-2-1 over that stretch.  Some weeks are defensive battles (19-12 vs Can't Touch This) and other weeks are shootouts (50-40 vs D-Sex on Saturday!) but either way, these are the games you want to watch.  With winnable games in his last two weeks, Buchlis can MAYBE still finish as high as first place in his division? Right?
 
#12 Andy Smigiera - Tight Ends in Motion
Last Week:  Lost to Sticky Bandits 38-12
In Tight Ends in Motion's six games this session, they've scored exactly one touchdown twice and exactly two touchdowns twice... and they are unsurprisingly 0-4 in those games.  The defense is still the gold standard we expect from this team, but they've GOT to get more help on the offensive side if they're going to compete in the playoffs against better teams.  Andy is still probably the most talented athlete in the League... but experience matters, and we'd bet Bro would have scored more than 12 points on Saturday.
 
#13 Jeff Easton - Bullet Club
Last Week:  Did Not Play
No games for Jeff this week.  When was the last time he played a game??  Feels like it's all bye weeks and Langley for these guys lately.
 
#14 Vince Taverna - Puckett All-Stars
Last Week:  Lost to Buffalo Vice 53-46
Arya Stark once said "anyone can be killed" and Buffalo Vice proved it on Saturday by handing the invincible Puckett All-Stars their first loss of the season.  Don't look at Vince -- the offense still put up 46 points, which REALLY ought to be enough to win a game.  Barring a total late season collapse Puckett will still be our D4 favorite but they won't be completing a perfect season anymore.
 
#15 Joe Miano - Jabronies
Last Week:  Beat Itches and Ohs via forfeit
No game for Joe this week as Itches forfeited.
 
#16 Brandon "B" Ford - Practice Squad
Last Week:  Did Not Play
No games for B (at least with Practice Squad) this week.
 
#17 Ryan Dougherty - Can't Touch This
Last Week:  Lost to Vaspian 30-28
Can't Touch This had won four in a row and were one of the hottest teams in the TSL.  How many people predicted they would lose to winless Vaspian on Saturday??  D3 is REALLY competitive right now (the "best" team is winning by 4.8 PPG, and the "worst" team is losing by 8.5 PPG) and anything's possible week to week.  Including Ryan losing a game, apparently.
 
#18 Andy Clark - Buffalo Vice
Last Week:  Beat Puckett All-Stars 53-46
Did one game flip the entire narrative on a division?  "D4 is Puckett's to lose" suddenly became "five teams are looking PRETTY GOOD right now in D4" after Andy and Buffalo Vice scored a huge upset over Puckett on Saturday.  Any time teams combine for 99 points in a division-altering game, it's going to be must-see football.  Can't wait for the rematch in the D4 Finals... if the gender teams don't play spoiler first.
 
#19 John Langley - Travis Henry's Kids
Last Week:  Lost to BAADies 60-32, lost to Cunning Stunts 52-40
Scoring 72 points in a doubleheader is usually good enough to win both, if not at least a split of the game.  Of course when your defense gives up 112 in those games, it changes the math a little bit.  THK got smoked by both gender teams on Saturday, and if you throw out their win against the 0-6 Creekers, they haven't had a quality win since April.  Langley can't be too happy with his defense right now.
 
#20 Buddy Lee - Passing While Intoxicated
Last Week:  Beat Cobblestone 29-28
PWI won a nail biter on Saturday as they barely survived Darryl Carr Superstar and his two point conversion attempt.  It had to be a tough game for PWI playing just a week after one of their players collapsed on the field, but Buddy still led the squad to a big win and a 3-1-1 record.  Teams rarely handle the jump up a division as well as Passing While Intoxicated has this session, and if they get a few lucky bounces they could potentially be the next Practice Squad (back to back division champs).
 
 
 
 
Fancy Statistics Section
 
Last week we shared the stats about the ten very best and very worst defenses in the League, but this week we'd like to look at that same concept a little bit differently.  Some teams are carried to success by their great offenses (gender teams, typically) and others are carried by great defenses (Vaspian, historically), so we wanted to explore a more in-depth view to see how balanced each team is on both sides of the ball.  To start with, we ranked all teams in the League on both offensive points per game and defensive points per game allowed from best to worst (the best is #1, the worst is #46).  Then we subtracted each team's offensive rank from its defensive rank to see how big the difference was, and to what side of the ball (if any) each team skewed.  Sound complicated?  It's probably easier just to show you:
 
 
What does this graph even mean, why did we pick weird colors, and why aren't the bars even labeled?? All good questions (we admit, this is a weird one) but hear us out:
 
If you're on the top of the above chart in that orange color, it means your offensive rank is better than your defensive rank.  For example, BAADies are the 3rd best offense in the League and the 37th best defense, so their combined score is +34. Not So Sticky on the other end of the spectrum is the 46th best offense in the League and the 10th best defense, so their combined score is -36 (shown in purple).  These two teams represent the biggest extremes in the League right now, and everyone else falls somewhere in between.  Anyone in orange leans towards offensive strengths, anyone in purple leans towards defensive strengths (those dashed boxes on the chart are just there to call out the biggest discrepancies where one rank exceeds the other by more than 10 in either direction).
 
So why did we pick orange and purple as the colors?  We usually use green and red for our graphics, but green typically implies "good" and red typically implies "bad", and this graph isn't about "good or bad" -- it's just about which side of the ball each team seems to be strongest.  The best example of the point we're trying to make is right in the middle of the graph, where you'll see Creekers and Legends tied at +1 (almost perfectly balanced, SLIGHT lean towards offense as their stronger side).  On the surface they could not be more different teams: Creekers are 0-6 (offensive rank: 44th, defensive rank: 45th) and Legends are 6-1 (offensive rank: 4th, defensive rank: 5th).  But both teams are about equally balanced in terms of their offense vs their defense... it just so happens that Legends are great on both sides, and Creekers are NOT great on both sides.  That's why we didn't label each bar on the graph - the +1 itself is kind of meaningless when you're describing the Creekers or Legends -- the important thing is where your team falls on the graph relative to the OTHER teams shown.
 
What did we learn from the chart?
 
For starters, D4 is the most "offense leaning" division in the League, with the top five "offensive" teams all playing in that division.  In fact other than Cobblestone (-2 leaning "defense") every other team in the division skews towards offense.  Of course the two gender teams are leading the way which should be no surprise, as BAADies are closely followed by Cunning Stunts as the most offensively skewed teams in the League.
 
We also learned that there's not much correlation between where you are on the above graph and how well you're doing in the standings.  For example the four most hypothetically "balanced" teams in the League are Creekers (0-6), Legends (6-1), Practice Squad (0-5) and No Punt Intended (5-2).  Two of those are great teams, and two of them are not.  Practice Squad is the only team in the League with perfect balance... unfortunately they're ranked 40th on both sides of the ball, which means they have a lot of adjustments to make everywhere.  
 
Puckett All-Stars are one of the most offensive-leaning teams in the League, and Untouchaballs are one of the most defense-leaning -- both are currently in first place.  So again, the graph isn't meant to tell you who's doing well and who's not... but it IS meant to tell you WHY you're succeeding or WHY you're failing.  If you're strongly in the orange and you want to improve, you should probably look to your defense to shape up.  If you're strongly in the purple and you want to improve, you should probably look to your offense to shape up.
 
 
***
 
That's it for the TSL Power Rankings this week!  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?
  
 
twitter share
© 2024 TSL 716
Joomla Templates by JoomZilla.com
Back to Top