What did we learn from this?? The magic numbers for us are always 20 and 40. Nearly every team in this League averages between 20-40 PPG both offensively and defensively. If you're higher than 40 offensively or lower than 20 defensively, you're doing an amazing job. If you're lower than 20 offensively or higher than 40 defensively... you're probably not winning too many games. This season we had 8 teams crack the 40 point mark, and one (unsurprising) team crack the 50 point mark. Congrats to Cunning Stunts, our Fall 2023 scoring champs. This is their third scoring title in the past four seasons. Here is how they compare with ALL scoring champions since we started tracking this:
So if Cunning Stunts were the BEST offense, who were the worst? This season we had two teams fail to make it to 20 PPG on offense (Practice Squad & Back That Pass Up). Those teams, unsurprisingly, went a combined 3-15 this season.
Then on the other side of the ball, there was not a single defense that held opponents to under 20 PPG this session! Last session we had four, so it's a little surprising that not one team cracked the 20 point mark defensively. It might have something to do with the great weather we mostly enjoyed, which tends to favor offense. That would explain why we had five teams this session (BAADies, Father Baker, 716, TMA and Frodo Swaggins) that allowed 40+ points per game, up from just one team last session. Those five teams went a combined 10-35-1 this season allowing so many points, and in fact 6 of those 10 wins (and a tie) come from Garrett Beesing QBed teams! The rest of the pack went 4-23 without Garrett's offense to save them.
Worth noting, when we wrote this same part of this article in Spring session, we said the following about Creekers: "It feels like we beat up on the Creekers a lot here, but that's just because we enjoy pointing out statistical anomalies. So here's a pro-Creekers stat for their team: guys, you are nowhere NEAR as bad as the Replacements were last year! The Fall 2022 season's punching bag team was 0-9, averaged only 10.8 PPG on offense (barely HALF of what Creekers are scoring) and allowed 48.0 PPG on defense. Where the Creekers were outscored by 21.7 PPG, the Replacements were outscored by 37.3 PPG. So you see, it could have been a lot worse!" The Creekers responded this session by going 6-3 and nearly winning the top seed in their division. The lesson there: don't give up, kids!
Besides the "40/20 Clubs", what else do we see from the best and worst units in the League? Freeballers finished as the only team to make the Top Ten Best lists in every category, while four teams (716, TMA, Not So Sticky and Back That Pass Up) all made the Top Ten Worst lists in every category. Apparently it's easier to be horrible than it is to be great!
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All-Time Championship Statistics
A few sessions ago we compiled a list of every TSL champion in League history and devised a ranking system to see who the "best teams of all time" were. This was exhausting to research and put together, but it's now very simple to update once a session, so that's what we've done here. The timing feels right to update you all on this now JUST before playoffs so we can remind you what you're chasing here... co-ed football immortality. Here are the current immortals:
THAT part is objective - the champs are the champs, and we'd like to think history will remember their achievements for 1,000 years to come (history classes will likely debate what exactly the "Tommy Hughes Experience" was). This next part though is subjective: we then attempted to compare the relative strength of each division's championships to come up with a ranking system (a D2 title is harder to win than a D4 title) and this is what we landed on:
- A D1 championship is our baseline since it's the best a team can do. Let's make that worth 100 points.
- A D2 title is worth, at BEST, 49% of that, since two D2 titles don't quite equal a D1 title (you can argue it should be LESS than 49%, but we've made the choice to weight lower divisions as heavily as reasonably possible here). 49 points for a D2 title.
- A D3 title should be worth 49% of THAT, so about 24 points for each D3 championship.
- Every subsequent division is worth 49% of the previous one, so D4 is worth 11 points, D5 is worth 5 points, and D6 is worth 2 points.
- Indoor championships aren't currently worth a point (though we may revised this in the future). With apologies to DILFS, Jelly Beans and Sticky Bandits, Winter sessions are often used to make new teams and play with new people. No team should be penalized in the rankings for doing that instead of entering their usual squad.
It's an arbitrary system of course, but it's the one we chose. So here is the updated list of your "greatest champions of all time" going into the Fall 2023 playoffs (active teams are highlighted below):
We always debate making a change to the math above so that subsequent championships in the same division would be worth less the second time around. After all, is it fair that Puckett keeps improving their standings by winning D4 over and over? Shouldn't they move up at some point? But for now we decided to leave it as is.
So where does that leave us today? Legends has tied Green & Associates by winning their third D1 championship, and two more would tie Public Enemy as the greatest team in TSL history. Eyes Downtown could jump from 9th to 5th with a win, and Sticky Bandits from 13th to 8th.
Puckett All-Stars is tied with Public Enemy for the most TSL Championships of all-time with five. If they win again this season, they'll be the most decorated champions in TSL history. You can decide yourself if that deserves an asterisk for never moving up to win D3!
Sticky Bandits and Practice Squad both have the opportunity to become the first team in TSL history to win a championship in four different divisions.
Bottom line, people remember champions, not the teams who come in second place, so immortality can only be found by winning it all. Good luck!