If you had told me forty years ago, hell, TWENTY years ago, that I'd be sitting here in 2025, almost 73, doing Hughes League newsletters and listening to someone who calls herself beabadoobee I'd have advised you to cut back on the cocaine, and yet, bygawd, here we are.
Hey, check this out....
Care to venture a guess as to the significance of that ticket? Well, the 1971 Hall of Fame Game in Canton was the first time Ed Hughes stood on the sideline as the Oilers' new head coach. I've been picking up some nice CEH-related items lately, and this ticket is among them. This is only the second example of this game ticket that I've seen. Luckily, the seller of this one was in a mood to accept an offer. In a week or two, I will update the Hughes Tribute page with some additional new items.
And the back of the ticket lists the '71 Hall inductees...
Jim Brown, Y.A., Title, Norm Van Brocklin, & Vince Lombardi!!! That made for quite a group. Don't want to shortchange Andy Robustelli (one of my father's favorites) and Bill Hewitt either.
Speaking of Lombardi... his 'Division' in the EHFL suffered the ignominious fate of losses across the board. But when everyone is marching backward, nobody falls farther behind, right? ;-/
Over in the Barenholtz Division, the Holes have established a one-game lead over the Nats and R'backs. As we turn for home, that one is anyone's for the taking.
The Kuhlmann houses the two strongest clubs in the league, the Bliz and the Sticks. Looking closely, you see the power of having a great defense in our league! Paz' crew is 7-0 with a two-game lead on the Sticks despite the two clubs being almost identical in scoring power. Again, the difference is the PA column. There is over a one-hundred-point difference, and that explains the two-game gap. Week 12's Bliz-Sticks matchup looks big, but with a two-game lead and a win in their first game, the Bliz have a bigger margin for error. Gonna be interesting.
Homepage items... I'm not sure I like the addition of player photos everywhere on the site. There is supposed to be a way to exclude them on some modules (I'd prefer they not clutter up the Waivers page, for example) but I have not had any luck in making that work. I'll keep trying.
That's all for this week, as we stay pretty busy with appointments and grandparent stuff.
We had a great time in the Windy City! We didn't do much sightseeing (we've done it all that many times), but we hit a bunch of our favorite food joints, celebrated our granddaughter's first birthday, and spent a lot of time with 4-year-old Leo. I did go downtown to watch Manchester United pull off a rare match win with the Chicago MUFC Supporters group at their bar. That was a lot of fun.
Back here in the real world... Thursday night's MFL Live Scoring snafu resolved itself as expected, not long after the game ended. I might not even have noticed, as I rarely watch or check in on games/scores on Thursday night. But I flipped over after the Rangers beat the Sabres and kind of enjoyed seeing the Giants dismantle the Eagles. My father was a Giants fan, and they still own a piece of me.
But the glitch caused the commish message forum to experience a 'meltdown' of epic proportions. "My league is in revolt!" "MFL won't be around next season!" Yup, guys actually typed those sentences. I was all rather amusing. At least one other commish shared my perspective. He suggested everyone wait for Friday's USA Today and calculate their league by hand. Oh, the memories!
Sorting Out The Week...I don't think I quite have a handle on what happened. The Flyers had to score 125 points to win a freaking game, and at that, it was a less-than-five-point win...at least I'm spared the shame of a zero-win season... the Blizzard seems unstoppable right now...they own the top seed at the moment but the season is just arroaching the halfway mark... the R'backs are on top in the Barenholtz but have scored the fewest points in the division and have fewer points that any of the three 1-win teams!! No need to scratch your head, just look at their PA...
...the Legends have won three straight to claim a share of the Lombardi lead. I spend a lot of time prepping for the draft, James, well, not so much. WTF?... I dunno about the rest of you bottom feeders, but you know that 7-7 can get you a decent shot at a wild card bid. Poker players will tell you that all you need is 'a chip and a chair' and anything can happen! I figure I've had some bad luck to open the year, so maybe a few breaks will swing my way...
Updates On This Site... With the issues some had on the league site now a memory (knock on wood), I've had a chance to work on things over here on the blog. If you click the Memorials link over on the right, you'll see that I added a small photo collage and memorial blurb for my uncle, Ralph Straley. As you know, he passed away earlier this year and was the guy who inspired me to start this silly thing that we enjoy each fall. BTW...the same update was applied over on the league site under the 'About Us' tab.
Something else I've recently worked on, something I'm excited about, is adding some photos to the Ed Hughes Tribute Page. There are some new sideline photos, including one with running back Joe Dawkins that I particularly like (for no real reason other than 'just because'). I've added a couple of archived NY Times articles that ran late in the 1971 season as the Oilers' season unraveled and Coach Hughes' seat got hot, and a Chicago Bears 1985 anniversary team pic that has notations for CEH as well as Walter Payton.
Even better are some pictures of EH in action in the late 50s with the Giants and Rams. Coming soon are three items I've been chasing for quite a while. I think I'll wait to discuss those when I have them in hand, scanned, and posted.
The Team Profile page is a revision of one I had previously linked on our league site. It's been cleaned up. The Flyers Helmet History is a complete redo of a page I did a long time ago and hadn't touched in forever. It's just for fun.
In general, I've been trying (with mixed results) to bring some visual consistency to those pages. I used different methods to compile many of them, Excel, MSWord, ChatGPT, coding by hand, the native Blogger system, etc. That's why, for example, the fonts are inconsistent from one page to the next, and some columns are different from one page to the next. I'm working on those things slowly but surely.
Yeah, Right! LOL... For reasons not worth getting into, I've recently looked at changing where I host this blog. One choice was Wix.com. I eventually decided that I'm not going to make any moves, but not before I clicked one of the options at Wix, which was claiming a domain name*. I typed in EHFL.com and here's what popped up:
The stuff in red represents my reaction. I think I'll pass. But if I change my mind, you can expect a slight rise in league fees for 2026! 🤯🤯
*=I used to own 'www.hughesleague.com'. But it was costing me an annual fee, which wasn't worth paying since I had no real need for ownership of that domain name.
More Chicago tunes!
Scenes from Aìda's birthday weekend. Yes, she is always this happy!
It's a busy week here at Hughes League Headquarters, so I will make this a quick entry.
We are through four weeks of the '25 season, and now only the Blizzard stand as unbeaten. A big midyear showdown with the Sticks awaits them in Week Five. The going will get a bit trickier for all as we enter bye weeks. The waiver wire will keep you out of trouble.
Milestones await!... I mentioned these at the conclusion of the '24 season, but I've failed to bring them up this year. We have four franchises within striking range of inclusion in the '300 Win Club'! Here is where they stand as of today:
Nats 296 wins
Holes 294 wins
Strawmenn 293 wins
Giants 290 wins
As we all know, Dan and Mike are not the original owners of their respective clubs, but as a league, we have chosen to honor the Charter Franchises in a 'continuous line,' as it were. The transition of both franchises was seamless and natural since both guys were involved with the teams before taking over officially.
We will have to see how the season plays out, but I fully expect to award at least a couple of you with 300-win plaques once the year is done. To be clear, these totals are for regular-season games, 1981 to date. 1980's weekly high score wins are not included.
🤯 Hogan won his 300th regular-season game last year, and I failed to order his plaque (OK, I was focused on MY trophy!!!), but I'll rectify that this time.
Chat GPT... I've added a few pages to this news site that had previously been located on the league homepage. Over in the right column, you will find links to our Team Profiles, Rules, Site Banner Archive, Championship News editions, Draft Locale list, etc. I even revived my Flyers Helmet History page! Most of these have been cleaned up using ChatGPT. I'm still tweaking some of them, but they are worth a look.
Site Issues Resolved (I hope)... From everything I can see, the issues that popped up after Week One have been resolved. As I mentioned in a few messages, the problems were likely a result of MFL's data feed conflicting with some browsers. Hopefully, we've put that behind us. The developer of this template has added an easy way around any similar occurrences by adding links to the help dropdown menu. Those will switch you to the plain version of the site and then back again. Here is where they are located.
In a related note, over the past weekend, the Injury Report was not filling in with information correctly on my desktop machine. The 'Status' and 'Details' columns were showing question marks. I checked, and the problem was only seen in Chrome. The report was fine in each of the other browsers I tried. I solved the problem by going to Settings-->Reset Settings-->Restore settings to their original defaults. I had to sign back in to most sites I use and reset my homepage, but it cleared up the problem. That is something to keep in mind if you use Chrome and come across isolated issues.
And that reminds me... we will be traveling over the next week, and I will have limited access to computers. So if you have any problems posting a lineup to the site, be sure to email/text/chat it to your opponent and me. I fully expect the site to work correctly now, but you never know when a hiccup might occur. If you are caught in a bind due to byes, I won't be much help, so check your roster and be prepared.
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A few more oldies!
My wife's friend Christina has a Selena Tribute Band and did a show at the Children’s Museum on Thursday evening. Ellis danced the entire 45 minutes and was dying to get on stage. Christina had her up there for the final song. Here are some pics.
And she had to wear her dance skirt to school on Friday!
I'm not sure which made me feel worse last week—the AFIB episodes I had on Tuesday or the realization on Sunday that the Flyers are garbage. LOL, it's funny how a strategy that led to a title one year can lead to the road to oblivion the next. Oh, well. We live, we learn, and in general, we have fun.
Scoring? Boring! I had a fit on Sunday afternoon when I looked at the scores on my app. I thought it had to have failed, like the web scoreboard. I figured the thing wasn't updating. But the problem was that the actual scoring was off, and it remained that way through the whole weekend. Just how 'off' was it? Glad you asked, because I've done the work so you don't have to. Here are the Week Three point per team averages for the seasons since we went to 8-man lineups:
2018 110
2019 109
2020 106
2021 102
2022 94.0
2023 105.0
2024 102.0
2025 89.3
So this past weekend was easily the worst Week Three in this system.
And here are the seven weeks that saw a scoring average below 90 for that same period. These are rounded to one decimal point where needed. The number of byes is listed for each week as well.
2021 Week 9 83 4 byes
2023 Week 1 84.1 0 byes
2022 Week 6 85.5 4 byes
2024 Week 7 88.0 2 byes
2021 Week 10 89 4 byes
2025 Week 3 89.3 0 byes
2022 Week 7 89.7 4 byes
So this is only the second time in this system we've had a week with a <90 point average with no NFL byes. I don't have any insights or an explanation for any of this. Just chalk it up to how things go sometimes. It does lead to some teams winning even on an 'off' week. (Hi Bobby and Dan 😉)
I started doing some research on the fates of teams that started 0-3, but it was so depressing that I gave it up.
The Last Word On Site Problems!Maybe, maybe not. The last comment I've had on our 'issues' was Padilla letting me know that his view of the league was back to normal. I'm hoping it is the same for everyone else who experienced problems. I don't know if it was the adjustments I made, workarounds/fixes you made, MFL glitches being fixed, or the developer's tweaks that solved the worst of it. I'm hopeful we've seen the end of having to deal with this stuff. I have restored the custom template in full, and I hope to keep it up. But in case you need them, I'm leaving the 'alt site view' links right there in the League Links module.
If you are still having problems, please reach out. Last Friday's News post was devoted to site problems and offered some possible solutions.
I'm hoping that the recent changes I made to the site have mitigated most, if not all, of the issues that some of you have had over the last couple of weeks. Let me go over what I know and what I've done to this point and suggest solutions to anyone with recurring issues.
---Apple users have had no problems (and are probably sick of the never-ending emails and texts about this stuff). I apologize to them and anyone else who doesn't need any workarounds.
---There are no problems reported using the 3rd party apps, MFL Platinum and MFL Mobile.
---The problems have been mainly with the lineup submission page and scoreboard. By 'scoreboard,' I'm referring to the main one, which you reach via the icon along the top of the site to the right of our shield and league name. See here:
---The problems seem to affect the site when using Edge and Chrome on Windows machines, but many of us use those browsers and have NOT had problems. My Chrome is Version 140.0.7339.186 (Official Build) (64-bit). Runs our site like a charm for me. Checking Edge, I have Version 141.0.3537.25 (Official build) beta (64-bit).
---As noted, I use Chrome currently, although I have many different browsers on my computers, as I try to test things using them. My computers run Win11 without issues; all I do with the browsers is allow for automatic updates.
---One owner has recently reported that the Marquee (the ticker with headlines directly below the logo) and the mini-scoreboard (the MFL/NFL board below the Marquee) have not worked/disappeared. The developer has told me he's never had that reported to him before. If you have the same issue, please let me know.
---I've set the scoreboard page to the plain version. I hope that eliminates problems.
---I thought I had done the same for the lineup page, but this a.m. I'm seeing the enhanced version (with player photos) again. I'm at a loss as to why. The only reason I can think of is that the developer sometimes updates his 'scripts', which trickle down to the sites that use them.
---This has kind of taken over my life for the past week and a half. There is no way I'm going back to the old site style with my crude coding additions. This template is much quicker and better functioning.
Sooooo:
Here is what I'm suggesting to anyone who continues to have problems...
---Make sure your OS (your version of Windows) is up to date. Support for Windows 10 is expiring. If you have a Windows machine capable of moving to 11, do so.
---Same with your browser. You can use Google to find instructions. "How do I update ____ browser?" will get you what you need. On both Chrome and Edge, go to Settings and hit the About Chrome or About Edge link, and the browser version is there. If it is out of date, it will update for you!
---Make sure you have JavaScript turned on. Again, Google is your friend for finding out how to check this. I was able to replicate the issues on my computer using Brave with JavaScript turned 'off,' which told me the problems are related to your browser's use of that plugin.
---Clear your browser's cache. It will force you to sign in on most sites that have your credentials stored, but it will also fix many issues. Again, use Google to find out how this is done.
---Experiment with a different browser. Edge and Chrome are fine, but there are alternatives out there that have features you may like. And most of them are quicker.
---I highly recommend Vivaldi and Brave browsers. I used Vivaldi for years until it developed an 'allergy' to a page I use as my start page. When they fix that, I'm going back to using it. I continue to use it as my mobile browser. Opera is another good one, but I haven't used it in a while. Firefox works fine, but it used to load our site a bit slowly, so I moved on a few years ago. Unlike most of the others, it isn't built on the Chrome platform, so it may work better for you. Worth a shot.
---The link below will get you to our league without ANY customization. It looks like dogshit (IMO), but everything is there. You can save it and use it as your regular link if you choose to.
EDIT: These two links are now available on the site under League Links down the right side of the home page.
---Use one of the mobile apps mentioned above, at least for lineups and checking scores. I'm rarely home on Sunday and in front of my computer (or watching the NFL, for that matter). MFL Platinum does a great job of keeping up with scores.
---I have a way to turn off the 'invalid lineup' message that was being returned on the submission page, but I don't want to risk someone actually turning in an incorrect lineup by mistake.
---I'm not going to say I'm done with trying to fix these issues, but with some solutions posted for the last of our 'problem children,' I'm going to take a break.
---But PLEASE continue to alert me if something crops up! The more details you include, the better. You can text, email, or use the Chat box on the site.
NOTE: Thanks to all of you who responded to my recent request for input on our site problems. As I suspected, the issues are browser-related and not universal, even across the same browser on different machines. See 'Site Issues' below for more on this.
I remember reading teachers talking about 'context clues' back when I was at Carver, but I never knew what they were yammering about. An automated league email that came last Wednesday morning kind of 'clued me in' (pun intended).
Here is the email:
Two things came to mind...
I have a bid in on TEs
Does everyone know about league emails?
Let's talk about both. I try to be the first guy to turn in waiver requests every week. I do this for obvious reasons. But sometimes I go back and adjust my bid(s), rearrange priority, delete players, whatever. Those changes are sometimes based on gut feelings, but usually they're based on more research once newsletters arrive and online pundits update their stuff.
This time, though, I looked at that email and figured, 'Dan is going to be looking at TEs; I'm bidding on TEs; if I want my guy, I'd better bump my bid.' And I did. It turns out I got my guy, probably overpaid by bumping my bid, and Dan got his TE the next day for $5.
That leads me to the second thought. MFL can automatically send you all sorts of emails. Here are my settings for the Flyers.
I clicked the dropdown arrow in the 'To' section of the IR email and saw that it went only to the Nats, Strawmenn, and me. You can check and adjust which emails you receive by going to the top menu and clicking My Franchise --> Franchise Setup--> Contact Info and checking or unchecking the boxes as you wish.
Site Stuff... As a few all of you are well aware, we had some issues last Thursday morning with the Lineup Submission page. Error messages were coming back for legit lineups. I'm not sure if it was a temporary glitch at the system level, a problem with the template, a browser issue, or a combo of all of the above. I switched the Submission Page to show the old, plain form as the default. And it seems the problem went away.
The issues with the scoreboard remain. I thought I had thrown the switches to revert the scoreboard to the less fancy version, which should bypass your browser issues, but apparently, I either haven't done it correctly or I haven't found the right 'switch'. I am in contact with the site designer, and I should have a solution this week. He does all this work for free and troubleshoots issues for a lot of folks, so I don't like to press him. He'll get back to me when he can. Thanks for your patience.
Week Two, how do you do?Well, personally, not so good. LOL Looks like the two teams from last season's Hughes Bowl will struggle to be at .500 this year. Hey, you take a big swing, and sometimes you miss... Sticks, Bliz, and the Holes remain unbeaten through two games. Each looks capable of extending that streak...another division week coming up, and Week Three is usually pivotal, coming back from 0-3 is not easy... is trading dead? Looks that way. C'mon, guys, it's not that hard... James is headed to MSP this weekend and has tickets for the Bengals-Vikes. Gonna be a fun matchup of Burrows and McCart...oops!...
Those of you who say I don't like any music from this century are incorrect...
Steven Sanchez has a great voice, and I love this song...
46 seasons! And I never fail to be despondent when my team lays a first-week egg. LOL Even though I've suffered four Week 1 losses in the years I've won the championship.
How was your Sunday night? I had a thirty-something-point lead at 7 pm, then...
This is where I give my annual advice...don't panic or get too cocky after one week! Your team is NOT where it will be in a month or so. I did some research and found that across our 44 head-to-head seasons (beginning in 1981) the eventual champ has gone 24-20 in Week One. As noted, in my six title seasons I am 2-4. Never give up! Never surrender!
Sure, I'd rather have won, but, TBH, I'm fine with my team, and you should be as well. Scoring was relatively balanced across the league, and the two bottom scorers had either an early-game injury to a top receiver (Worthy/Bombers) or a freak off-week for a star (AJ Brown/Joliet). The league averaged just a tick over 90 points per team. That's down a couple from 2024 but up six-ish from 2023.
More thoughts on our draft.... and I'm talking in a technical sense, since how we get together works fine. No, I'm talking about PrimeTime Draft, allowing rankings/ADP to be displayed, installing a timer, and related issues.
First of all, I (mostly) like the PTD application. It's pretty cool visually; its nice to see positions coded by color, and other than a bit of an issue this year with a few owners getting started, I can't say there have been any problems making player selections. It's a piece of cake to upload the results to our league site.
Having said that, there are some things I dislike about using it, both as a concept and in the execution. In no particular order...
1) I dislike the lag between when a pick is made and when it is announced (pops up) on all the screens. The app is intended for use as an in-person draft tool with no more than an owner or two drafting remotely. The idea is a podium-style draft where owners use a shared device that is hooked to a big screen. Having 12 guys on remote slows the system, or so I am led to believe.
2) The app can't be tied to draft eval sites. When I was in a serious baseball league, I drafted using the FantasyPros site alongside the ESPN (or maybe it was Yahoo) draft page. As picks were made, it showed my 'best' options for my upcoming turn. Now this is going to conflict with something I'll say below, but it is a consideration. Those third-party draft advice sites can work directly with MFL's native draft room if that's your thing.
3) PTD may be an 'orphan' app/site soon. While this year's download was branded and the 2025 version, I wonder how long they will stick around. I say that because they don't maintain or respond to their FB page anymore, and they didn't announce a winner in their annual random drawing for a free season of PTD.* There is an alternative app, Fan Draft, which also works with MFL and looks like it may be more user-friendly for remote users.
*=I no sooner typed that than a winner's name popped up in my FB notifications. LOL My skepticism stands. They used to award four or five free licenses; lately, it has been one.
4) Speaking of the issues a few owners had to start the draft, my view as commish isn't quite the same as everyone else's. That made it tough to know what the issue was when an owner couldn't see a part of the screen, etc. I figured out later, when testing things, that I can more easily troubleshoot issues like that by using a second screen, one where I am strictly an owner. That is a real hassle, especially since I already have multiple screens in front of me to administer Zoom, etc.
5) Other things I bitch about are directly related to the fact that this is supposed to be used with an in-person draft:
No chat function
No easily accessible 'Pause Draft' function
The native MFL draft room shows me who is online and 'in' the room, ready to draft. With PTD I was guessing (hoping!) we were all good to go. Unless you contacted me, I couldn't be sure until your first pick came around and you responded. I should have asked everyone not present or on Zoom to text me, and I will try to remember to do that in the future. (Thanks for the text, Dave!)
If everyone is present in a room, the commish can halt proceedings easily. In the MFL room, there is a pause button. In PTD, no such function exists. At least none that I can find that alerts the room that we have stopped.
Without a chat window, there is no way for us to kibitz while drafting. For me, that's a lot of the fun. I know there are ways to set up a web-based chat room to use, but I have enough trouble getting some of us to read a simple email (:::cough::: "Do we use a tight end?" :::cough:::) 🤷
I was doing some digging over the weekend, and I saw that Fan Draft has a chat function. I may have to look closer at it next year.
ADP... i.e. Average Draft Position, gets a lot of run. PTD has the option to display ADP, and I turned it on this year at the last minute. Lots of outside draft advice rankings will give you ADP data. The issue is that ADP in PrimeTime Draft, and most other places, can be misleading. Unless you can filter the results to take into account only leagues with the same parameters as the one you are drafting for, you are getting bad intel. A 'two-flex spot' league like ours is far different than a standard league. Or a 'super flex' league. Scrambling things further is the fact that there are ten-, fourteen-, and sixteen-team leagues out there. PPR, Half PPR, No PPR, TE-heavy...all these have different values for nearly every position.
I'm bringing that up because I saw some really weird rankings while we were drafting last Monday. Maybe "weird" is the wrong word, but I for sure saw players ranked in conflict with every rankings list I was familiar with, and that is quite a few lists. This is an issue I'd need to take feedback about. A poll next summer may be in order.
I sometimes think we could go to a draft pick timer, but with another draft that came in at around three hours, I think we are ok using peer pressure to keep things moving. LOL
ChatGPT to the rescue...I'd been playing around with creating graphics using it in recent days. Then a saw a discussion somewhere about using it to clean up HTML coding. I thought I'd give it a shot with the mess that had become of the Ed Hughes Tribute page. Damn, in about 10 seconds it returned my code with pics centered properly, text cleaned up and rendered in a more readable font, etc. Check it out by clicking the link over on the right.
Site Tips... If you have more than one team in the MFL system, you can check their scores under the My Team tab. On the right side, you will see all your matchups listed under the All My Leagues module. One tip: You can click the little gear icon at the top of the module and change the view for the matchup to 'text' by clicking the little arrow to the right. Using 'text' rather than 'logo' or 'icon' is a much cleaner look.
Disregard this. It's closed.
The first guy to post "I heard the news today—oh, boy!" on the league chat (post to 'everybody') wins $5 waiver cash!
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