We're down to a single game, the Super Bowl, and James' Omaha! Omaha! crew leads the pack in the Second Season contest. Here is a chart (in graphic form, click to enlarge) that shows who is still active for each club. Two teams (and possibly one or two more, I haven't checked that closely) are out of contention for a money berth.
Once the Super Bowl ends, I will update the site with the final standings. Soon after that, usually by the Tuesday after the SB, MFL rolls over the sites to the next season. In our case, our 47th!!
Oh, Joy!
Then I will lock down and distribute the 2026 Yearbook. It has some fun new features that I am looking forward to sharing. Right now, I am in the process of trying to error-check the thing.
Just a few days ago, I was rather dismayed at the forecast for this coming weekend. Now things have taken a turn for the better, and we can say the Houston owners will be meeting on Saturday. I may change the venue, but count on being somewhere inside the Loop at around 2:30 that day. I will text all you locals with details when I'm sure of what we are doing. As always, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. It's more fun for me than the draft because I'm not having to worry about all the possible tech things that could go wrong. LOL
The long-range forecast for the 31st is not promising. I'll make sure to update all the Houston owners as to a possible venue change, rescheduling, or cancellation of the get-together.
The weather now appears to be fine for Saturday. Maybe a bit too cold for an outdoor venue. I will update all Houston owners with any change in where we meet, but the date and time look to be good to go. See you then!
And now back to your regularly scheduled Hughes News....
Two weeks in, two weeks to go in the Second Season contest. A few random observations:
-It is still wide open, with several clubs having a real shot at a money finish, a few others essentially eliminated due to low point total and having their remaining players covered (or nearly covered) by higher scoring teams.
-Only James is ahead of the Beat The Monkey team right now. My use of an RNG to select that club's players should tell everyone how much luck is involved in these things.
-They have nine players left; only Jack's team, with ten, has more. And the Monkey crew would have ten had Nix not gone down.
-Speaking of Nix..I can't recall this many postseason NFL injuries in the prior contests. We've already had Kittle and Collins lose a game plus for the teams that selected them, and Nix and Charbonnet are finished.
Quick Reminder. The Houston guys are meeting a week from Saturday:
January 31 @ 2:30
Bayou Heights
3905 Washington Ave, between Jackson Hill and Waugh
There is a map and links to their website in the last Hughes News.
Here are the details for our 2026 Houston owners' meetup. We will get together at Bayou Heights on Washington Ave on the 31st, at 2:30ish. I have a table reserved on the covered terrace. They have a good selection of appetizers/entrées and lots of drink offerings, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
I've been there several times and it's family friendly. Click either instance of their name to visit their website. I've heard from several of you locals and hopefully we have a full house.
3905 Washington Ave, between Jackson Hill and Waugh
More Things...
The Second Season is thru one week, three to go. If history tells us anything about our NFL Playoff tournaments, it is that you can't judge the winner after a week.
I keep a spreadsheet of the scoring which I will share next week, and in the Yearbook.
Speaking of which, I am just about done with the new version. I will wait until the Second Season is done to wrap it up and send it. I think you will like the new addtions to it.
Finally, out-of-towners need to keep an eye out for a mailing from me. I asked for address confirmation and got ONE response. One. LOL I had already confirmed a couple but if we haven't communicated as to your address, I'd like to know if has changed in the last year or not.
You'd think I'd shut up now that we've crowned a champ for the 2025 season! No, I still have things to talk about, even if I'm mostly talking to myself here.
First things first...
If you haven't entered a roster yet, there is still time. We will lock it down at the kickoff of the first NFL Wildcard game on Saturday. You're probably even more tired of getting my emails on this than I am of sending them. So what are you waiting for? I'd love to see all 12 franchises involved. Here is the link:
Here's Dan's trophy for winning Hughes Bowl 45. The good news... I think it looks great. Crown Awards always does a good job, which is why I've used them for so many years. They processed my order and shipped it in a couple of days.
The bad news... they shipped it to ME!
The backstory: they've been advertising free shipping for 'trophies' over $100 forever. The discount was especially welcome this year because they had bumped the cost of this thing by about $30(?) over last year when I bought mine. What they failed to advertise is that they now consider these things as 'acrylics', not 'trophies'. WTH? I couldn't figure out why there was a charge for shipping when I tried to check out. I contacted support, had a 'chat window' opened, and made my complaint.
The agent said she'd 'kick this upstairs for consideration', and had me send her the shipping address again. A few hours later, I get a new invoice with a $5 shipping discount. 😖 I was certainly hoping for something better, but I paid for it 'cause I was tired of messing with it. Two days later, FedEx sends a shipping notice with MY ADDRESS. So in the end, I not only didn't get my free shipping, but I'm paying for shipping twice!
Then again, it did turn out nice. BTW...any 'imperfections' that appear in those photos of the trophy are the result of my shitty photo-taking skills. The thing is gorgeous. LOL
And here is the 2025 Hughes News Special Edition. At least I think it is. I'm struggling with Microsoft's soon-to-be-orphaned Publisher program, so I'm giving this a whirl in Word. I may tinker with a font or something, but this gives you a good idea of what it's looking like.
In 2025, we welcomed a couple of new members into the 300-Win Club. Joining the Heroes and Flyers were the Nats (big year for Dan, yes?) and the Holes. Congrats, Jim! The Holes are the first non-Inaugural Year club to make that milestone.
In the right-hand column, among the links, you'll see one to the page I made for the 300 Win teams. It notes the details of their accomplishment. And you'll see that we have a couple of franchises on the cusp.
We are still a few weeks away from our annual get-together, but I figured I'd remind everyone of the date. Block out the afternoon of Saturday, February 7th, on your calendar. I'm keeping my options open as to where we go. I like Cactus Cove, the site of our last two shindigs, but I also like changing things up. I have a couple of ideas in mind, but I'm going to wait until I can get a better picture of the weather before I decide.
EDIT...I may move this up a week because of a possible conflict. Stay tuned.
Now that the season is about over, I've been working on my favorite Hughes-related project, our yearbook. I love having all our records in one place and not needing to upload individual files to some unreliable and finicky third-party site.
I'm about 3/4 of the way through updating it for the new year. I've added a couple of things, most notably scores for every game in our history. Added them for every postseason game as well. I'm compiling a list of highs and lows and assorted quirky stats as I come across them. That will be included, too. Also left to do is the lineup data page for 2025, and I will again put together a Second Season scoring data page. Once it's all done, sometime in February, I will send it via email.
It is an Excel workbook, and I am aware that not everyone has access to Excel. Once the thing is complete and published, I will try to dig into ways to easily convert it to something universal, like Google Sheets or as a .pdf, if that is even possible.
In the meantime, enjoy some of these great tunes while you're waiting.
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.
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