Randomness in a string... I think we are at a sweet spot regarding roster size. 17 players, given the parameters of our lineup configurations and the way bye weeks are running in the NFL, seem right to me. I haven't checked on the number of waiver pickups but I'd be willing to bet we are ahead of prior seasons. Some of that is due to injuries no doubt. But I feel like there is more talent on the open market. More claims = more fun as far as I'm concerned.
Another factor in the number of claims is that more teams are still in the hunt than is normally the case. I'm typing this before Week 11 is done but looking at the standings thru 10 weeks compared to last season is eye-opening. We have two teams more than three games off the division lead. In 2023 we had five.
League Things... 'Live by Thursday Night, Die by Thursday Night' I turned on the Philly-Washington game and Jimmy O had 15 points against me with his two players. The game was winding down so I went to bed feeling pretty good. Wake up Friday morning and the holes have 33 points. Apparently, while I was sleeping, Barkley ran for 900 yards and two TDs in a couple of seconds. Oh well.
In poker, they say "All you need is a chip and a chair." In the Hughes League, you need four wins and the division games coming up. Three teams in the last two seasons have made the playoffs with 7-7 records.
Things I Thought I Thought... But It Appears Was Wrong About... I looked back over the past four seasons (2021-2024 to date) and checked how bye weeks affected scoring. The chart below (you'll need to click to enlarge) is fairly self-explanatory. I'm trying to figure out what to make of it. For simplicity, all scores and scoring averages are rounded to the nearest whole number. Make of it what you will.
This and That... I had a couple of discussions last week about Keepers—well, one discussion and one passing mention. Here's the deal. I can't see going back to a 'keeper' system. I'm fine with redrafting... it's simpler and less work. I liked our previous systems but any kind of keeper deal inherently makes it harder to bounce back from a bad run.
Also, you can't switch to keepers without a year's notice. IOW you have to draft with the knowledge that you could keep these guys for the future. And we didn't do that this year. The bottom line is that we are unlikely to change anything significant anytime soon.
I tried to update the lineup data (linked in the EHFL Links module) with 2024 data. I was thinking of doing an update each week to view throughout the season. I also wanted to clean up some misspelled names on the Hughes Bowl Champs Lineup page. But the hosting site for these files is quirky. Reliable, but quirky. I gave up on the idea but had problems restoring the old files. I think they are all in place but I can't guarantee it. That's what I get for not leaving well enough alone.
My big crusade over the last few years has been to try and make things easier on myself. Another epic failure on my part. LOL
UPDATE... Looks like the original files are in place but I *think* that is not the latest Rules page. No big deal because nothing has been changed since I last updated it in the off-season.
That Thursday Game... We were out and about Thursday Night and I only saw the last drive of the Ravens-Bengals game. I tend to forget Thursday night games and I didn't check the numbers until I turned on the game. As the Bengals drove down the field I thought it would be funny if Burrow threw one more to Chase. And damned if he didn't. Oh, and the Bengals got jobbed on the two-point try but that's neither here nor there.
Friday morning, me being me, I checked to see if anyone had ever lost a game with a 50-point scorer in his lineup. (OK, Chase had 49.90 but let's not quibble over 0.1 points.) The answer is 'no'. I did uncover a couple of interesting facts. In 2018 Drew Brees scored 53 points for the Blizzard (still the points record) and they beat the Holes. In that Week 8 game Jimmy had THREE 30+ scorers and the final was 155-151 Bliz! Jimmy's 151 total was the second-highest score for the season. That's hard to fathom.
Now that I’m not an owner* (being an unpaid team consultant has it’s rewards) it’s easy for me to look at the sometimes crazy situations brought about by the quirks and heartaches of fantasy sports and, well, not laugh exactly, but think ‘Better you than me, Bro’.
Case One: Week Six, Giants versus Bombers. On the surface a low scoring but otherwise routine 59-54 win for the Bombers. But take a closer look. The Giants got 22 from Ryan Tannehill but the rest of the starters were in single digits. That’s not easy in a PPR league. But checking the bench tells a different tale. Each available bench player (Matt Cassell was on bye) outscored the starters at their spot. Rick had 157 points on his bench and a Potential score of 142 points. Had both teams played their best lineups the Giants win 142-70. Dude.
Case Two: Week Eight, Blizzard versus Holes. Holes score 151 points which sets a team record. It’s five points higher than their previous best of 146 that they scored in Week 7. And they lost. 151 points and they f’ing lost! The Bliz also used that game to set a team record and scored 155. So the Holes score 297 points in a span of about 8 days and come out of it with a 1-1 record.! Better you than me, Jimmy.
That game, by the way, is the highest scoring game in history. The 306 combined points eclipsed the previous record of 299 set in Week Three’s Blizzard versus Strawmenn game.
*= At the time James was running the Flyers day-to-day. My job was to second-guess him.
Chase's Thursday night performance, under our previous 'full PPR' scoring, would have been a 55-point night and set the all-time Hughes record. As it stands his is the top receiver score in our history. Counterpoint: If Tee Higgins plays there is no way Chase has that much volume. I guess I finally got some benefit from the Year Of The Limping Wideout.
Probably a good thing, too, because the rest of my crew was rather mediocre. Chase has a 'normal' game and it is a nervous Sunday Night.
League State... Wins across the board for the Lombardi guys. All hands, even the Legends, are still on deck there. Quick research note: the team that posted (or tied for) the best regular season record has won the Hughes Bowl 13 times in 43 seasons. That is barely 30%. Ask me again why I'm not feeling very confident... looking at the Barenholtz and Kuhlmann there is only one team (the Strawmenn) more than one game away from first place. Every time I've thought a certain team was a 'sure bet' to be the leading title contender they've fallen off the pace.
One more week before we begin to navigate the second round of division games. I have a feeling I won't have the energy to
Random thought: The Week 14 byes will play a big factor in who advances to the playoffs and where they land.
Lineup & Opponents Power Rank Data Update: Through 10 weeks here is the breakdown...
RB-WR-TE W-L PPG
1-4-1 9-5 97.4
1-3-1 0-1 83.0
2-2-2 0-4 88.8
2-3-1 32-32 99.9
3-2-1 19-17 94.4
No team has used 1rb 2wr 3te configuration in the two years we have had the 2 Flex player option. Although I did give it some thought a few weeks back.
Here is the updated Power Rank for the teams you face down the stretch. Click to expand.
It's pretty easy to ignore your team's issues when you win. But when you win with a half-ass total and a bunch of luck you become aware that a shiny record doesn't mean all that much. I'll leave it at that for now.
(Editor's Note...I typed that last night when it appeared I would slide by with a score in the low 70s. Turns out some late action made the point moot in my case but it still applies as a general fantasy football axiom. Dave will agree as noted below.)
Stuff: I had an idea as I was walking James' dog the other morning. How about finding out every team's strength of schedule for the remainder of the season? I put together a spreadsheet that averages the Power Rank of each club's remaining opponents.
The MFL system provides two different Power Rank lists but I stuck with the primary one. (You can see their formula here.)Once upon a time, I had my own PR system that I posted in the Hughes News Stat Sheet. It was back in our TD-only scoring days. I know a couple of factors were wins, scoring above or below the League Average, and a few other variables that I can't remember. I need to go back through my archives and dig that up.
First of all, here is the Power Rank explainer from MFL (click to enlarge, then hit your back button to return):
And here is the current Strength of Schedule for each team for the rest of 2024 (click to enlarge then hit your back button to return).
It's not sorted in any order besides being grouped by division. And, to be honest, it probably has no real meaning other than to satisfy my curiosity. Bear in mind that a lot of values used to make the PR are influenced by bye weeks. And it doesn't consider players coming and going from injuries. For example, Chris McCaffery, the #1 pick, will be available for the Rbacks soon, maybe this week (until he has another hangnail 🙄).
So make of that what you will.
League doings and things like that: Speaking of the Rbacks...they probably had their season saved when the MNF game was tied as regulation time dwindled away last night. They were behind the Heroes but the OT gave Kareem Hunt that chance at a TD and he came through for Dave. Falling to 3-6 would have put a crimp in any shot at the playoffs for that bunch...the wide receiver carnage continues unabated...looks like I should have held on to Cade Otten. He's acting like the second coming of John Mackey. Then again, if the Bucs weren't reduced to recruiting wideouts from the stands he wouldn't be all that.
We again have a bit of separation in a couple of divisions as the Lombardi clubs trailing the Flyers fall a game further back. The Pirates broke their losing streak and they and the Bliz are destined for a battle in the remaining weeks. The Giants are 5-4 and just a game back in the Barenholtz despite being last in points scored. Then again they have had the second fewest points scored against them.
The fewest wins by a defending Hughes champ is four, last 'achieved' by the 2007 Sticks. The Strawmenn have a chance to set the new standard. Somewhere on this computer, I have a copy of Fantasy Pros post-draft League Analyser results which had Padilla's crew third IIRC. Just goes to show ya, well, something... I checked scoring versus last season and this year's average team total points is about five points per team higher. I also noticed that the Legends were leading the league in points thru Week 9 of 2023. Redrafting makes results more volatile year-to-year for sure.
That's all I got. Here are a few tunes I really enjoy. And a few pics of a cutie!
Ellis does library time when she's here with us on Wednesdays. Last week there was a set of twin boys there, Easton and Weston. I kid you not!
Waivers Make Me Crazy Dept...I intended to write a 'How To' on the Wednesday waiver claim system. And I may still do it but it'll likely be after this season. I haven't had the time or energy to do it justice. Add to that the fact I can't seem to get a complete handle on it myself. In the meantime, the best advice I can give you is to dig into the Help Section of the website that covers Blind Bidding. This link will get you there.
The relevant part, the thing that trips most folks up, is discussed in the selection I've reprinted below.
Most commonly, for conditional bidding, you placed the higher dollar player lower in your priority, making them a condition of the above add/drop.
Bids for conditional bidding are awarded first based on highest bid dollar, then priority of the bid group (groups having no priority over each other). If an owners puts a lower $ amount on a higher priority player, this hides that player until the higher condition is no longer valid. For example: Team 1: Group 1: Add Player A for $1 and drop Player X Add Player B for $5 and drop Player X
Team 2: Group 1 Add Player A for $2 and drop Player Y
Team 3: Group 1 Add Player B for $4 and drop Player Z
When processing the bids the system will process high dollar amounts to low dollar amounts. So it will start at the first priority High bid which is: Team 3 will win Player B for $4 Next, it will look at the next highest dollar value bid which is: Team 2 will win Player A for $2 Only then will it ignore Team 1's bid for Player A (as this was outbid), now showing his conditional bid of Player B for $5, but that had already been awarded.
I botched my own bids last week because I was in a hurry and placed my requests in a single group instead of separate 'rounds' which are not really 'rounds. Or whatever. 🙄
Things... After we dropped off to just two teams breaking the 100-point barrier last week (falling off from a season-high of 9 in Week Six) we are back to seven this week and the Pirates missed by just a few tics... Dan and I combined for 14 lineup submissions in Week 8, The rest of you had 13 combined!! I'm not sure what that says about any of us...
I'm tracking results (W/L) by lineup configuration (because of course, I am), and here is where we are through Week 8. That's the RB-WR-TE starters on the left with the W/L on the right.
1-4-1 8-4
1-3-2 0-1
2-2-2 0-3
2-3-1 28-26
3-2-1 12-14
We had our closest game of the season finish up on Monday night as the Giants squeezed every possible yard out of Najee Harris and eeeked past the Pirates 100.54 to 99.58 which, for the math-impaired, is a margin of 0.96 points. If I'm reading the NFL's Gamebook correctly Harris' 7-yard run on first down with 2:53 left in the game was the dagger that killed the Pirates.
That result had repercussions across two divisions as it threw the Kuhlmann into a tie with the Pirates and Bliz both 4-4. It created a logjam in the Barenholtz, three teams are at 5-3. Never get too cocky in the Hughes League, my friends. You're liable to get holes bitten out of the seat of your pants.
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Multiple musical entries this week. These are some great covers I've been saving for a week in which I need a pick-me-up. Ray Charles, Chris Stapleton, Disturbed (yes, Disturbed!), and Amy Winehouse are included. Enjoy. And RIP Ray and Amy
Oh, and check out the world's cutest Witch at the bottom of the post. She was also a Bluey Magic Fairae and who knows what else this Halloween season. But that Witch deal is just so great!
This is the latest Ed Hughes picture in my collection and I've added it to the Ed Hughes Tribute page on our league site. It's similar to several others I have and one of a few that also shows Oiler Assistant Ernie Zwahlen. It turns out that Zwahlen played a central role in the drama that dogged the Oilers during Coach Hughes' one-year tenure in a Colombia Blue mock turtleneck.
The articles below make for an interesting read. Some attribute CEH's firing to Bud Adams, others put the credit/blame on GM John Breen. Breen himself says it was his doing, not Bud's. But when Breen was a radio show co-host here in Houston in the 80s he was always a Bud Adams apologist so I have my doubts about all this.
The only sure thing is that Zwahlen was a Hughes guy and he got booted out before the Oilers took their team photo for the season. I also know that the club finished with three impressive wins to end up at 6-6-1.
The author of the third article below, Wells Twombly, was a SF Examiner writer who had a column in the Sporting News (where I found this story). He wrote this story just a year after leaving the Houston Chronicle for the West Coast. That explains why he was familiar with the Oilers' mess. It doesn't explain why he comes off as such an asshole in this column.
League Stuff... I'm kind of burned out on research but I'd like to know the last time two clubs got doughnuts in one game and when was the last time a club had the high total for a week and that total included a zero. The Flyers and Strawmenn both had blanks, the Flyers had our high score anyway.
Watching the end of the Bucs-Ravens and Baltimore has a 10-point lead with a couple minutes left. Troy Aikman wants the Bucs to 'pack it up and live to fight another day." WTF? It's 10 points and the Buc's kicker is very good at on-side kicks. Troy talks so damn much he doesn't think about what he's saying. STFU once in a while, Troy. jesus.
After seeing Chris Godwin's foot facing the wrong way as he was down on the ground, I bet Todd Bowles would like to have that sequence back. But how are folks criticizing him for playing his best guys?
The Bucs lost Mike Evans earlier and are now just about out of wideouts. Baker Mayfield...meet the Flyer's bench. And guys are falling out everywhere. The Niners have their top three players out. And so on and so on... of the Top 25 Wide Receivers drafted NINE are IR'd, Out, or Questionable, and at least three others missed multiple games! FOUR of the first eight RBs taken are currently out... QBs have been luckier. Of the NFL starters only two, Tua T. and Anthony Richardson have been sidelined although Jayden Daniels may now join them.
From my perspective, that MNF'er was a very odd game. At one point in the second quarter, Padilla had crawled within 6 or so points of me, Mayfield was throwing picks like Halloween candy from a firetruck float, and Derrick Henry appeared to be taking a nap. Meanwhile, the Strawmenn had Murray and McBride going for three more quarters. Then, suddenly, Henry does a couple of his 'locomotive on a downgrade' imitations and Mayfield realizes his club is about nine scores behind. Game over. Fantasy is weird.
For a few minutes late Monday, the Nats and Blizzard were about as close as two teams can be in this era of decimal scoring. James Conner's last run sorted it out. Speaking of the Cardinals, I wish I could un-see those uniforms. Horrible.
Random Nonsense and Trivial Crap... the three teams that led their divisions at this point last season (Legends, Strawmenn, Rbacks) have one thing in common...they are all in last place this season!.. the Barenholtz Bunch had the tightest 'race' last year after seven games (all within two games of each other) and that holds true this season as well...
Who's Hot? ...Flyers lost in Week 1, and the Holes lost in Weeks 1 & 2. Neither has lost since... Who's Not? ... the Pirates have dropped three since their 4-0 start. (but they are still on top in the Kuhlmann)...
I was going through my old Hughes News archive looking for something else and saw this from Week 9 of 1998...
One last thing. Here are the Top 10 scorers thru Seven Weeks for 2023 and 2024. Make of it what you will.
I keep messing with a feature for this site.. My Top Ten Musical Artists. The trouble is I can't seem to cut it down to ten. Maybe one day. But when I do decide on 10 I can promise Merle Haggard will be one of them.
As the '23 Champs, the Strawmenn, got off to their 0-4 start (they got a win in Week 5) I began researching both slow starts and what happened to championship clubs the year after they earned the crown. I posted my 'slow starts' gibberish a couple of weeks ago. Now I have the second part done. Call it 'The Aftermath of Glory' Report.
Now, right up front, I would like to point out that over 45 seasons, we've had several different formats for assembling rosters. We had periods of keeping seven players (the famous, "Goddammit Commish, you're moving the line!" period), keeping two, keeping none, keeping zero to three players in a two-phase draft, keeping players based on the prior year's keeper value, and so on. So defending champs have been composed of nearly intact starting lineups, keeper 'stars' and new draftees, completely new rosters, and many things in between.
Add to that the fact that we've had multiple playoff qualifying regulations. The bottom line here is that while the research is fun for me and (hopefully) interesting for you, it can't possibly be used to suggest an outcome for the '24 Strawmenn or any other team in the future that lucks into wins a Hughes title.
Here are the results of my research in chart form. Most of it is self-explanatory. In the right column, the red represents teams that repeated, blue means the team made it back to the Hughes Bowl but lost.
Here are some observations from what I found...
Defending Champs have made the playoffs 27 times while 16 clubs failed to make the post-season after a Hughes Bowl win.
Teams with Hughes Bowl win 'streaks' ie: the '96-'97 Flyers, the '99-2000 Nats, and the '19-'21 Giants, all made the playoffs the year after their streak but fell short of the finals.
12 teams followed up their Hughes Bowl wins with below .500 records. Two of those teams were able to squeeze into the playoffs with 6-7 marks. The 2013 Giants lost in the Wild Card round but the 2014 Bombers went to the Hughes Bowl before losing.
Five HB winners made a return to the title game but lost.
Seven clubs backed up Hughes League titles with double-digit win seasons. The 1996 Flyers and 2020 Giants are the only clubs among those seven to win Hughes Bowls.
The Bombers went 12-1 the year after their 2003 championship. that's the best record of all defending champs. They lost in the Semi-Finals. The 2020 Giants were 12-2.
The worst record for a team coming off a Hughes title is 4-9. That dubious record was achieved by the 1985 Giants and 2007 Sticks.
League Things, Football Things... Classic fantasy move by Dan got him a win. With a Monday Night guy's status up in the air, Dan covered his ass by grabbing Ray Davis to back James Cook. Cook was ruled out late on Monday but with Davis to pivot to the Nats grab a win and they stay in the hunt... there is more entertainment value in five minutes of any MNF Manningcast than in any three hours of an NFL game on any network... the Holes and Rbacks are on winning streaks that have tossed the Barenholtz Division into a top hat. All four are within a game of each other... this upcoming week will mark the halfway mark of the season. You can't rule anyone totally out of contention when you include six teams in the playoffs but the five-loss clubs will need to do some serious rallying ASAP.
Speaking of the Holes...they had a 99.3% Scoring Efficiency Rating this week. Their best possible lineup (Kirk 5.40 for Aiyuk 4.70) would have added 0.7 points to their total. I'm burned out on research but I bet that's close to the best in many years. The fact that Jim didn't have much of a live bench had something to do with it, but still... We had our first 'two TE lineup' this week (only had six last year) and the Strawmenn scored almost 102 with it but they came up short. Yes, I am tracking lineup config data again. LOL
Hughes Quirks... One of the byproducts of research is stumbling across league tidbits I'd forgotten about. One such quirk was our innovative 😉 '13 start' rule. That was my effort to avoid owners going on 'autopilot' and never changing their starters. The rule was that no player could start 13 times in our 14-week season. I'd track starts and late in the year I'd list guys who hadn't yet met the 'sit rule'. We began that in 1984. It was a forced bye weeks thing and in that regard, we were ahead of the NFL which began their dreaded bye weeks scheduling in 1990.
We continued this for a few seasons, I think I stopped when I... a) realized we'd settled into a good group of owners who wouldn't 'draft and ghost' and b) got tired of jacking with it. In 1985 we had set the rule to 11 starters max in the new 13-week season. Here's a look at the pertinent piece of the Week 11 Stat Sheet from '85.
In an unrelated note, I grinned when I saw the following in a newsletter from Week Six, 1983.
Once a stats chump, always a stats chump.
I'm usually up to date on local concerts but I found out I missed a chance to see Tom Jones a couple of weeks back when he played Houston—still kicking myself.
Here's our newest...Aida Jane Glusberg, the Queen of Evanston!
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