November 12, 2024
By Evan Lepler

Read "Franchise Rankings: Part 1"

The UFA shifted into a new era over the past four seasons, with standards rising around the league. Fans can watch every single game and easily find out exactly how many yards their favorite player produced. New pulling rules have transformed the opening throw of each point from a monotonous task to an important strategic moment. The influx of international stars coming from overseas has been awesome, and the level of detail, dedication, and week-to-week drama is at an all-time high. 

Consequently, I thought it would be fun to rank the 24 franchises based upon their post-2021 performance. After doing it, this exercise was indeed interesting, challenging, and certainly surprising. 

If you missed it, earlier today we unveiled the bottom 12 teams. As a reminder, I decided to focus entirely on what has happened on the field, rather than also factoring in how each team has fared from a business standpoint. Furthermore, comparing teams based upon their gameday atmospheres could be intriguing, but felt too subjective for this particular debate. All these things could be a conversation for another time, but would require too much speculation and guesswork to be accurate now. 

Alright, let’s dive into the top 12.

12. Seattle Cascades
Regular Season Record (2021-2024): 18-30
Playoff Appearances: 1
Playoff Record: 2-1
Championship Weekend Appearances: 1
Championships: 0

Breakdown: The skeptics can swarm and critique this choice to have the Cascades—with a regular season win rate under 40 percent—in the upper half of the league, but the simple feat of qualifying for Championship Weekend in 2024, in my opinion, had to elevate Seattle above everyone else in the bottom dozen. Participating in the semifinals, admittedly, felt like a farfetched dream for the ‘Scades entering this past season. Over the three previous years, the team had only won nine total games. But they matched that total in ’24 and added two more meaningful victories in the playoffs, including their seismic upset over Salt Lake, which denied the Shred a chance to play at Championship Weekend as the host team. The bottom line is that no team shifted its 2020s narrative this past season quite like the Cascades, and time will tell whether this recent run was the turning point for a franchise on the rise or just a blip for a team that’s spent much of the past decade mired in mediocrity. 

11. San Diego Growlers
Regular Season Record (2021-2024): 26-22
Playoff Appearances: 2
Playoff Record: 1-2
Championship Weekend Appearances: 1
Championships: 0

Breakdown: The Growlers have stumbled a bit over the past couple years, but their run from 2019 to 2022 was genuinely impressive, going 29-7 during those three seasons. Of course, the ’19 season does not factor in here, a reality which narrowly keeps the Growlers out of the top 10. San Diego does deserve props for their professional style, meaning that even when the team’s been in rebuilding mode and eliminated from playoff contention late in the season, they have continued to battle with ferocity and focus. Their determination, passion, and perseverance stunningly eliminated Oakland from the 2023 postseason before it started, and the Growlers, after a 2-9 start in 2024, won two of their final three games to cap the campaign. Obviously, the next step for their developing nucleus is to not be so far out of the race by the time the calendar hits July, but every West Division team knows that the Growlers will always be prepared, hungry, and dangerous.

10. Boston Glory
Regular Season Record (2021-2024): 25-23
Playoff Appearances: 2
Playoff Record: 1-2
Championship Weekend Appearances: 0
Championships: 0

Breakdown: Just looking at the resume over the full four years, one might think it is questionable to have Boston above San Diego. After all, the Growlers have been a part of Championship Weekend, whereas the Glory have not yet achieved that stature. However, the larger context has to matter too. Since ’22, the Growlers have gone 0-6 against the Salt Lake Shred, who’ve been non-competitive in their two meaningful matchups against New York. Meanwhile, Boston beat the Empire twice this past season, including once in the playoffs, a super meaningful result that could very well reverberate for years to come. That victory, as slim as it was, was absolutely huge for the Glory, potentially a franchise-shifting building block for the years to come. Evaluating all the accompanying evidence, from 2021 to the present, created a compelling case to elevate Boston into the top 10. 

9. Austin Sol
Regular Season Record: 31-17
Playoff Appearances: 3
Playoff Record: 2-3
Championship Weekend Appearances: 1
Championships: 0

Breakdown: The Austin Sol have been pretty darn solid in the regular season over the past four years, winning almost 65 percent of their games. Of course, there’s also the caveat that they’ve gone 21-3 against Dallas and Houston since 2021, while managing just a 10-14 record in the regular season vs. everyone else. Frankly, their 2023 playoff push was the gamechanger on their resume. Those pair of one-goal wins over Carolina and Atlanta got the Sol to their first Championship Weekend and dramatically shifted the perception of the franchise. That magical run only continued for two points against New York in the semifinals, but the Sol’s lone South Division crown recalibrated their reputation in a highly memorable and meaningful way. 

8. Colorado Summit
Regular Season Record: 25-11
Playoff Appearances: 2
Playoff Record: 1-2
Championship Weekend Appearances: 1
Championships: 0

Breakdown: Perhaps this is too lofty a spot for the Summit, who’ve only looked like an elite team for about one and a half of their three seasons in the league. Five games into 2023, Colorado had gone 16-1 in their regular season action since entering the UFA. But with just a 9-10 record since, it’s frankly stunning to see how the Summit have slipped. They definitely are a team that has a ton to prove in 2025, but in looking at the totality of their results, they still have won almost 70 percent of their regular season games. For several stretches, albeit not in the most recent past, the Summit have been a pretty dominant team, capable of scintillating highlights and fierce defense. If Colorado can recapture their early form, they could easily become one of the top five teams of the decade; but they are also presently on pretty thin ice, with the potential of falling from the upper tier of the league completely. 

7. Salt Lake Shred
Regular Season Record: 31-5
Playoff Appearances: 3
Playoff Record: 3-3
Championship Weekend Appearances: 1
Championships: 0

Breakdown: There’s a decent-sized gap between the bottom 17 and the top seven, and the Salt Lake Shred, despite a disappointing finish to the 2024 season, are firmly in this upper echelon. Through three years in the league, the Shred have only experienced five regular season losses, giving them an incredible win rate north of 86 percent. They also have something that no other team that’s below them on this list has, a win at Championship Weekend. Their 2023 semifinal victory over Minnesota required a miraculous game-tying buzzer-beater as time expired, but it’s also the type of iconic play that will live on forever. The Shred have also been one of the most entertaining teams in the league during their three seasons, with a stable of electric athletes capable of leaving any crowd in awe of their high-flying layouts. 

6. Chicago Union
Regular Season Record: 34-14
Playoff Appearances: 4
Playoff Record: 3-4
Championship Weekend Appearances: 2
Championships: 0

Breakdown: For starters, let’s recognize that Chicago has been to the playoffs in each of the past four seasons, a feat that none of the other teams on this list so far can claim. The backbone of their resume, of course, came in the first two years of the decade, when they went 21-3 in the regular season, advanced to a pair of Championship Weekends, and battled New York pretty darn tough for three quarters in the 2022 final. They have been supplanted as the Central standard over the past couple seasons, but still managed to make the postseason at 6-6 and 7-5, respectively, in 2023, and 2024. Looking back, their clinical semifinal victory over Colorado in 2022 is part of the rationale for lifting the Union above the Shred. It should also not be overlooked that Chicago was neck-and-neck with the Flyers in the 2021 semis; although they eventually fell in overtime, the Union represented themselves well in both of their Championship Weekend appearances. 

5. Atlanta Hustle
Regular Season Record: 37-11
Playoff Appearances: 3
Playoff Record: 0-3
Championship Weekend Appearances: 0
Championships: 0

Breakdown: The toughest team to rank, without a doubt. Reasonably, one could argue Atlanta deserves to be in the top four, back together alongside the old Atlantic Division’s premier quartet that dominated that unforgettable 2021 season. But one could also rationally posit that the Hustle, with exactly zero playoff wins over the past four years, should be down somewhere in the 9-to-11 range too. Ultimately, the Hustle landed in the five spot, one slot ahead of Chicago, based partly upon the belief that the South’s second-best team over the past four years deserved to be ahead of the Central’s second-best team in this time span. Obviously, this is quite subjective, but the case is bolstered by the fact that the Hustle have way more marquee wins along the way, earning multiple victories against New York and Carolina, while also beating DC. Their three playoff losses—all by one, with two coming in overtime—have been excruciatingly painful and devastating missed opportunities. That’s undeniable, not to mention a burden that the Hustle will carry at the forefront of their identity until they can win the big one. But at its best, Atlanta has been a top five team in the post-pandemic era. We shall see whether their postseason breakthrough is coming, or whether some bad luck and brutal mistakes have caused them to miss their title window entirely. 

4. Minnesota Wind Chill
Regular Season Record: 38-10
Playoff Appearances: 4
Playoff Record: 5-3
Championship Weekend Appearances: 2
Championships: 1

Breakdown: The most surprising realization of this entire endeavor might have been recognizing that the Wind Chill have more regular season wins than the Hustle over the past four years. Obviously, not all regular season results carry the same weight, but when you factor in Minnesota’s 5-0 edge in playoff victories compared to the Hustle—particularly the Wind Chill’s postseason triumphs over DC and Carolina this past August—there was simply no way to have the Chill beneath Atlanta on this list. There’s no doubt that Minnesota has earned an immense amount of respect for the way they have competed at the past two Championship Weekends, in which they never lost in regulation. Sure, that’s a quirky distinction, and the 2024 event was headlined by historically vicious winds, but Minnesota’s depth, systems, and often overlooked talent continued to rise up in the biggest moments. With the recently announced James Pollard signing and some other rumored free agent additions potentially also coming down the pike, the Chill are aggressively making moves to try to go back-to-back, a feat we’ve only witnessed twice so far in UFA history. 

3. DC Breeze
Regular Season Record: 39-9
Playoff Appearances: 4
Playoff Record: 3-4
Championship Weekend Appearances: 1
Championships: 0

Breakdown: Minnesota fans are probably wondering why their semifinal victory over the Breeze doesn’t lift the Wind Chill above DC in these rankings. There’s certainly an argument for that, but there’s also the Breeze’s overall resume, bolstered by the fact that all four of their playoff losses came against the eventual champion. Furthermore, DC has three wins over New York over the past four seasons, more than any other team in the league. The Breeze have also bested Carolina four times since the start of 2021. Like the Hustle, DC has been plagued by disappointment and heartbreak in the playoffs, but the four-year run, even without a title to show for it, has been undeniably consistent and excellent, with a top-ranked offense and an always dangerous defense. They may have one fewer win than Minnesota, including the playoffs—43 to 42—but the context of each of those wins matters, and the Breeze have been a perennial championship contender all throughout this decade. There’s no reason to think that will change in 2025. 

2. Carolina Flyers
Regular Season Record: 35-13
Playoff Appearances: 4
Playoff Record: 7-3
Championship Weekend Appearances: 3
Championships: 1

Breakdown: Like the Breeze, the Flyers have exactly 42 wins over the past four years, but the disparity in postseason success is striking. Carolina has gone 7-3 in the playoffs since pandemic, with two trips to the title game highlighted by their otherworldly performance against New York in the 2021 final. With just seven turnovers in that championship game, the Flyers were historically stingy against the Empire’s intense defensive pressure. Truth be told, there was a time when Carolina was regarded as the franchise annually plagued by late-season trauma. From 2015 to 2019, the Flyers averaged double digit victories, but mustered just a 2-5 record in the playoffs. Their fortunes forever shifted with the ’21 run, which included an epic comeback win on the road at DC in the quarterfinals, a remarkable overtime triumph against Chicago in the semis, and the aforementioned all-timer against New York in the finals. Adding in another 11-1 season in 2022 and this past summer’s journey back to the title game, it feels like the obvious call to consider the Flyers as the second-best team in the league so far this decade. 

1. New York Empire
Regular Season Record: 42-6
Playoff Appearances: 4
Playoff Record: 8-2
Championship Weekend Appearances: 3
Championships: 2

Breakdown: The times, they are a-changing. Sixty years ago, Bob Dylan sung those lyrics for the first time, and they currently capture the current vibe around the Empire after the 2024 season, coming in the wake of a completely preposterous half-decade of dominance unlike anything the league had previously seen. Three perfect seasons in four years, with three titles and another loss in the finals, is the basic summary of New York’s excellence from 2019 to 2023. After the 2024 season, however, which saw the Empire endure a tumultuous offseason and experience more total losses than the organization’s previous four years combined, it absolutely feels like New York’s dynasty, as we’ve known it, has ended. They are still one of the notable contenders in the league, but the air of invincibility they previously owned has been painfully punctured. With all that said, it may be another six decades before we see another run like the multi-year stretch New York just delivered, with a 31-game winning streak that lasted almost 1,000 days. Even with the times seemingly a-changing, the Empire have gone 50-8 since the pandemic, with a pair of championships, a trio of MVPs, and a lifetime of memories. They are the clearly the best of the best of the UFA’s 2020s so far, but heading into 2025, they are just another good team trying to create the best version of themselves.