No Luck Needed...Nats Win 7th Crown

 For only the fourth time in our Performance Scoring era, the Top Two seeds squared off for the EHFL championship, and, as has been the case three times previously, #2 is taking home the hardware. 

The Nats, who last won the Hughes Bowl in 2004, downed the Sticks, 117.28 to 101.12 in a game in which they never trailed. Dan's crew bounced out in front by 50+ points on Christmas Day and kept their lead more or less intact throughout the weekend. They were up by 42 points as the 2nd Sunday afternoon window drew to a close. The Sticks, the league's top club through much of the second half of the season, rolled out their star, Christian McCaffrey, on Sunday night, but that deficit was simply too much to overcome, even for him.

The Bengals' Chase Brown led the Nats in scoring with 27.6 points, which gave him nearly 60 points for the postseason as he turned in his two best 2025 performances when the Nats needed him the most. He was named the Hughes Bowl MVP. QB Dak Prescott, mid-season trade acquisition 🫩 RB RJ Harvey, and kicker Cam Little all turned in point totals above their yearly averages in helping the Nats to the win.

The Sticks fell short of their goal to win their fourth title, but Keith had a great season.  It's tough to win, especially against a solid team like the Nats, when two of your receivers score under two points combined. But Keith can take solace in knowing that there was no other lineup configuration at his disposal that would have changed the outcome. 

Hughes Bowl 45 MVP Chase Brown of the Nats

Streaks Broken and other Nats-related Hughes Bowl Trivia!

-13 wins by the Nats in 2025 (inc. two postseason) ties them for 2nd all-time with 8 other clubs as far as winning lineups in a year is concerned. The record is 14 wins set by the Giants in 2021 (12-2 +2 in the postseason).

-The Sticks and Nats had won 24 games between them when they began the weekend with both having gone 11-3 in the regular season and both having won their semifinal game. The only previous time two Hughes Bowl participants had brought 24 wins to the title game was back in 1993, when the Heroes and Nats (then known as the HebePokes with Dave as GM) had followed the same path. Dave prevailed in that contest.

-In the twenty-two Hughes Bowls of the Performance Scoring era, the average winning margin has been 20 points, which puts this 2025 game near the middle. 

-The win ends what had been the league's third-longest non-title run (21 years). The Rbacks (32 years) and Heroes (31 years) are the teams with longer waits for a crown. The #3 wait now belongs to the Bombers (12 years).

-The Nats' last championship, in 2004, was unique in that it was the only Hughes Bowl ever won on a tiebreak. In fact, that season the Nats won two, yes, TWO! postseason games on tiebreaks. And they only won their semifinal by three points. Here is the box score from that Hughes Bowl and some of the remnants of the league site from that year. 

The fact that in the very first year of performance scoring, with much greater odds against a tie, we got two of them in the playoffs is nuts! It is one of those things a commish never really gets over. I still have facial tics from that '04 postseason. 

A Note About Steve Barenholtz: 

I fell asleep early on Sunday night, well before the Bears-Niners game was over. I woke up about 2 a.m., checked the scores, and put up the league site's banner marking Dan's win. I also started digging into the Nationals' history, making notes for this entry. Of course, our late friend Steve even today has his fingerprints on the franchise and this league. He brought David, Dan, and, by extension, Jack into the Hughes League. 

And I wasn't alone in thinking of Steve last night. The first email I saw this morning was from Rick. He noted that Steve would be proud of the job Dan had done with the Nationals. 

When he moved back east, to NYC, Steve would usually call me on Saturday mornings to turn in a lineup. Back in those pre-Internet days, back when the newsletter and scoresheet were a snail mail effort, most weeks he hadn't yet been to the Post Office, so his first question was 'How'd I do?'. If I had good news, I'd hear that chuckle that I can still hear in my head to this day. 

I agree with Rick...Steve would be excited about this week's result. Miss you every day, my friend.

And other notes:

I'm ducking out for a few days since this is a 'dead week' for fantasy. Next Monday, the rosters will be available for the Second Season contest. I will email everyone when that happens. Check the site using the link on the regular league's homepage. 

Everyone who enters a lineup will receive a 2026 waiver cash bonus. Prize money (also in the form of 2026 waiver cash) will go to the top three (at least) finishers. The cost of our league's Hughes Bowl trophy jumped this year, and I do mean jumped! So expect an increase in yearly dues going forward. I will try to discount those dues for Second Season participants. 

Also, be aware that I won't 'carry' non-payers in the future. Hopefully, the cost of the league stays stable for a few years, as they have bumped it twice recently. 

When I decided to install the new template back in the spring, I had hopes that it would make my job easier. After all, the template came fully loaded with the features I had been using on the old site without me having to install and maintain them. I think I can finally say that I have the site where I want it to be. But, lord, it was a struggle. here's kind of how it went. I may be leaving a few things out. I was in denial for a while. LOL

The template itself conflicted with some of my amateur coding, and it took weeks to untangle things with the help of the developer. Meanwhile, I installed and uninstalled it about a dozen times. 

Once loaded correctly, I spent a lot of time tweaking it around the edges to get some of the old functionality incorporated. I ended up compromising, and some of the features from the old sites were transferred to the Hughes News blog. Not ideal, but that's how it had to be.

A few weeks into the season, all hell broke loose as many owners, mostly Windows users, had problems with the lineup, roster, and scoreboard pages. After coming up with many 'work-arounds', the site was usable, and eventually the issues cleared up. At least I haven't heard anything to the contrary.

The waiver money tally seemed 'off' to me about mid-year. But without having kept a close eye on it (never felt the need to hand-tally it all), I couldn't be sure. I still think something occasionally goes south with it. My suspicion is that too many leagues use the same time as us (9 Central) to run their blind bid waivers. It puts a strain on the servers, and things like waiver costs get fubar'd. I'm basing that on the fact that my couple of dynasty leagues send out the automated emails at 9 pm or a minute or two after. Our transaction email has been as late as 10 or 12 minutes. I may move our waiver time back a half an hour next season. 

Late in the year, as a Thursday night NFL game was wrapped up, much of our site (everything below the top banner) just vanished. It turned out to be a DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) Attack on the template owner's website. Since he hosts much of the code, everyone using the template was S-O-L until the attack ended sometime during the night. 

EDITED TO ADD: After this week's MNF game, I looked at our scoreboard and all the players were listed with 0.00 as a score for the week. The HB final was shown correctly, but the players' scores were gone. I then remembered that this was a fairly regular occurrence this season. It always resolves itself before too much time has passed (it was correct this morning), but it shouldn't happen. It hadn't happened on the league sites for my dynasty teams, so I believe it is a template issue. 

If this all sounds like a 'Whoa is Me' plea for sympathy, it is not. It is a way for me to document issues for next year in case they recur. I am hoping that now, with the template in place and working to my liking, I can count on moving forward next season and not having to spend nearly the time I did this year working 'under the hood'. 

Finally:

I'm planning to have our Houston owners' annual get-together on the Saturday before the Super Bowl (Feb. 7 this year) as usual. This will be the first time since 2021 that we will not have a 'live' trophy presentation. But that's fine. We can talk shit about the champ even easier when he is not around! Hope to see all the locals there. Details will be sent as we get closer.

Mid-Game Hughes Bowl Update

 I'm posting for no reason other than to bitch about these long Hughes Bowl football weekends that start with three Thursday games and last until Monday. 😏 Lucky for everyone, there are no Monday players in either lineup this time around, at least not at the moment. I was involved in the 2010 Hughes Bowl that included a TUESDAY game due to a weather-related postponement! That sucked.  

Oh, and to post a picture of my Christmas Princess, Ellis. She's hoping all your Christmas Wishes came true!

But as long as we are here, let's look at the game in progress. The Nationals have fired half their bullets and now have a 55+ point lead. That total is about what you'd expect, given the players who participated; nobody went off, but neither did anyone really underperform. 

Now it's up to the rest of Dan's crew and ALL of Keith's to determine our new titleholder! The 'system' projects the Nats to hold off the Sticks, but as we've all seen, the 'system' just ain't perfect. How do I know? Well, I got an inside peek at their point projection process at work  I was able to capture some video of it. Take a look...

Sadly, that is just as reliable a system as any other! Good luck to both clubs. I'm ready to order that trophy in a couple of days.

A Hughes Nursery Rhyme!

 

One, two, buckle my shoe. 

It's been a while since we have had the #1 seed facing #2 in a Hughes Bowl. In fact, we have to go back to 2013 when the #1 Bombers swept aside the #2 Blizzard to find our last 'Top Two' Hughes Bowl Matchup.

Three, four, shut the door. 

Both winners came back from early deficits and used some big performances to close out their wins.

Five, six, I pick the Sticks. 

Okay, I'm stretching with this one, but 'six' and 'Nats' don't rhyme. TBH, I have no idea who will win this game, None. It's been a year of unpredictability. Why would it stop now?

Seven, eight, don't be late. 

Don't be late signing in to the Second Season contest this year. Check out the details below. (Yeah, I was going strong until I got to this one.)

Nine, ten, a big fat hen. 

About here, I realize this was a bad idea, but I'm committed. And I did consider 'A big, Nat hen' but that seemed dumb, even for me. Lucky for you, I'm done.

The Semis, in brief... It looked good for the Legends when lunatic manchild Puka Nacua went off for 40+ points on Thursday night, but they couldn't sustain above-average output while the Nats spent Sunday breaking out the heavy hitters. The result was a Nats lead going into Monday that Lincoln had no chance of denting. The final was a stroll for Dan as he won by over 35 points. If he can maintain anything near his Week 16 output, he's got a very good chance of getting the Nats a seventh Hughes Bowl crown. 

Things were just a touch more dicey for the Sticks in their win over the Blizzard. The top-seeded club held a decent lead after Sunday, and with McCaffrey and Taylor still to come, it appeared that Paz had little hope, even with Purdy left to play. But for just a bit in that Colts-Niners matchup, I had to back away from my keyboard. With Purdy racking up points at a fierce clip, there was suddenly a chance my Nats versus Sticks research would become moot (To say nothing of that Hughes Nursery Rhyme!). But McCaffrey wasn't going to let that happen. He grabbed a couple of Purdy's endzone tosses, and with them, he also grabbed the brass ring for Keith. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Clash of Titans on our hands. Both clubs went 11-3, and they were the top two scoring clubs this season, separated by less than ONE point! Here we go to:

Hughes Bowl 45!

As seen in the graphic, we have the top two seeds squaring off this year. That's a rarity. I dug into HB results going back to 2004, the start of our Performance Scoring Era, and came up with this chart (click it to expand it):

If you're scoring at home, you will see that only three times over the last 21 Hughes Bowls (team names in blue) have we had #1 vs #2, and only in 2013 did the #1 beat the #2. And while I was counting shit, I went and highlighted the games that were, in theory anyway, 'upsets'. Those games, with red seeding numbers in the chart, were won by the lower seed.

Now, something we all know is in play here. Seeds are frequently a 'false' rating. Time and again, the #4 seed finished second in their division but were a 'better' team than one, if not both of the other division winners. It happens. The Flyers were one catch over the course of the season (0.5 points) away from being the #1 seed last year, but ultimately finished as the #4 seed. Hell, if I dug a bit, I could find a #5 that was a stronger club than a #3, but you take what falls your way and go with it.

The table below shows how each bye slot fared in Hughes Bowl games since 2004. Note that we had a #7 seed (the Bliz) in 2022, which was due to me adding an additional team to the postseason. Interestingly, the #3 seed had made more HBs than any other spot. And 3/4s have as many teams in the title game (17 total) as 1/2. 

Make of all that what you will.

Let's look at the history of the two teams over the years in postseason play. First, separately:

The Sticks are making their fifth Hughes Bowl game and are coming in with a 3-1 mark in their previous title games. Their last was in 2021, which was their only Hughes Bowl loss. 

The Sticks have played 27 postseason games since their founding in 1984, and are 15-12.

The Nats are playing in their 13th Hughes Bowl, breaking a tie for the most appearances with the Flyers. They are 6-6 on our big stage and looking to reverse last season's HB loss and break their two-game losing streak in title contests. Here is how they have fared:

They are 25-19 in 44 Postseason games through this past weekend. Oh, and a win (their 7th) would set the standard for franchises, again breaking a tie with the Flyers, for most championships. 

Something that surprised me a great deal is that these two teams have only met twice previously in playoff games. In 1986, Hughes Bowl 6, the Sticks beat the Nats, 47-40. It wasn't until 2015 that they met again. In a Wildcard encounter that year, the Sticks prevailed by a single point, 106-105. Counting those two games, the Nationals hold a 26-17-2 lead over the Sticks in our history. 

The Postseason Contest!

I re-upped our site for a 25/26 NFL Playoff contest. Check your email for an invite, or just go to the site directly at this link: 2025/2026 Second Season.

The league will work as it did last time. Details are right there on the front of the site. I will 'pay' a small bonus in 2016 Waiver cash to everyone who participates, in addition to the prize winnings for the top finishers. You will be able to select your roster as soon as the NFL regular season wraps. 

It takes just a couple of minutes to pick your players, and after that, there is nothing you need to do. There's no reason to skip this. 

Murray Christmas, One and All!

Upset Sunday

 

Blizzard, Legends Advance To Semi-Finals In (More Or Less) Easy Fashion!

It was a weekend of upsets...or was it? The Blizzard's win over the Holes was unexpected, if you ignore their big Week 14 revival. Mike's crew scored early and often in a 44+ point Wildcard victory over the favored Holes. But if you look closer at the Blizzard's season, you'll see that they were 7-0 at one point and seemingly unstoppable. So the talent was there. What followed that hot streak was a series of bad breaks/close losses/player slumps/unlucky matchups. They now appear to be back in 'first half' form and have definitely earned their way to the place they are in, the Semi-final round. 

They now face the #1-seeded Sticks. You'd usually expect a clear favorite in a #1 versus a #5 matchup. But this one is more intriguing.  The Sticks' two 'horses', McCaffery and Taylor, have looked somewhat human the last couple of weeks. The gap between the two clubs may be back to where it was early in the season. I'm out of the prediction business, just let me say that this one bears watching. 

On the other side of the bracket, we saw one of those games where one club jumped to a huge start and then applied the brakes. The Heroes led the Legends 70-something to 6 after the early window on Sunday. Then James' guys got cranked up, and by the time the Sunday night game started, the Heroes were done, and the Legends were within range. JJ McCarthy (of all people) supplied the winning points, and Darren Waller used Monday night to rub salt in the Heroes' wound. 

So, hey, Nats and Legends...Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. This one hinges on which version of the Legends shows up this week, the mid-season crew that vaulted from the depths of the Lombardi Division's mediocrity to take command, or the early- and late-season bunch that struggled for points? Either way, they will have their hands full with the steady Nationals, who have their eyes on a return trip to fantasy football's biggest stage, The Hughes Bowl.

Our 2025 Semi-Finals:

I mentioned this in an email, but it bears repeating...I was hearing from other commissioners that SOME league sites are being hit with pop-up ads on the scoring page. They don't appear to be anything malicious; they are simply the ones being fed by MFL that are normally seen by owners in leagues without custom coding to avoid them. They are displayed on the lineup page when a user attempts to close the page, as well as a white, opaque bar at the bottom of the page with ad content. If you see them on our site, I'd appreciate a heads-up. 

Let's Try Something...

I remember this from back when I had a Twitter account. Ever wanted to ask the Commish something? Well, here's your chance. Fire a query my way in the comments, via email, or as a text, and I will answer it here. Haven't you ever wanted to know why I'm usually in a bar on Sunday mornings when some folks are in church? LOL

Simply the best. 

Raul Malo died last week after a battle with colon cancer. I've mentioned previously that he was our favorite artist. We saw him perform countless times and were looking forward to shows in October and on NYE in Austin. But we've decided that we will watch a recorded Mavericks show and raise a glass to RM instead. His voice, songwriting, and showmanship will not soon be replaced. 

Some recommended videos. 

Many Are Called...

 

...But Few Are Chosen!

It turns out that Rick was right...there was no need to angst over all the possible permutations as the Week 14 games approached. The smart move would have been to just let the games play out and then figure out who made it in. It played out without me having to parse WTF happens when FIVE teams finish at 7-7, etc. Much of it was a foregone conclusion by the time the Sunday Night game came to an end. Let's look at the teams that made the playoffs, what they did to get there, and a few trivial notes on each. Starting with the Bye Teams....

#1 Sticks 11-3: They chose Week 14 to lay an egg, but it had no bearing on their season. Having beaten the Nats earlier in the year, they were guaranteed the top seed going into the week and, TBH, look even better with the Colts now having to rely more on Jonathan Taylor. A superb bounce-back year for Keith after back-to-back 4-10 campaigns. 

Last Hughes Bowl was in 2021; Last title was 2017

#2 Nationals: 11-3: They stayed on the Holes' heels most of the year and jumped them in the last weeks of the season. The loss to the Sticks in Week Six (by less than six points) cost them the top seed. They are looking to return to the Hughes Bowl in consecutive years. 

Last Hughes Bowl was last season; Last title was back in 2004.

---

Now the teams squaring off this week in the Wildcard round....

#3 Legends 8-6: The James Gang had a slow start, a hot midseason, and a slow finish. However, they did enough to secure the Lombardi, including holding off the Bombers in Week 14. As a result, they will face their divisional rival, the Heroes, this week.

The Legends have no Hughes Bowls in their history, but James guided the Flyers to title game appearances in 2017 and 2018.

#4 Holes 9-5: They led the Barenholtz more than they trailed, but dropped to the second spot late in the year. Despite that, they remain a serious title contender with the third-highest PPG (by a bunch).  

Last Hughes Bowl was in 2023, and their last Hughes Bowl win was in 2018. 

#5 Blizzard 8-6: They finally ended their death spiral in Week 14 with a win to clinch a postseason spot and avoid what would have been a nosedive for the ages...7-0 to 7-7 and likely out of the playoffs. But the postseason wipes the slate clean, and they had a nice final week scoring bump, so anything is still possible. 

Last Hughes Bowl AND last championship title was in 2022.

#6 Heroes 7-7: They were 2-6 after eight games and rallied to finish at 7-7, capping the year with an explosive showing to kill the Flyers' hopes and wrap up this slot. That they actually had a chance to win the division (with a Lincoln loss to the Bombers) is kind of mindblowing. 

Their last Hughes Bowl came in 2006, and their last league championship was back in 1994. In case you were wondering... no team has won a Hughes Bowl after a .500 season. OTOH... after the wacky season we just experienced, would it surprise you at all if the Heroes went from 2-6 to a crown?

Well, there is one thing I have in common with Ed Hughes: we both have a great view of the action from the sidelines. Of course, Coach was getting paid. BTW... that photo above is the latest addition to my Hughes memorabilia collection. The back has a date of 11/28/71 and a notation (caption?) reading Target For Critics. The photographer is Bill Clough, a Houston-based freelancer at the time. He is still active in the field of photography after 60 years in the biz. 

Things to remember in the Postseason... 

• Teams get 'locked down' as they are eliminated. 
• Playoff lineups require a tiebreak player chosen from non-starters.
• Owners are awarded a $10 waiver cash bonus each week they advance. That includes the two 'bye' owners this week.
• Waiver Calendar remains the same until the Week of the Hughes Bowl (Week 17). There will be blind bid waivers processed as usual that Wednesday night at 9 pm. But the next morning's FCFS session will run through 5 p.m. Central time on the following Monday evening, instead of closing on Sunday at Noon Central. That eliminates the possibility of a HB team getting caught short with a late player scratch. 

And, Booker T. and the MGs with the late, great Steve Cropper on guitar. RIP to the legend.

More great stuff from Steve Cropper