The 2025 Yearbook

If you haven't already, you'll be receiving an email containing the 2025 Hughes League Yearbook. If you haven't been reading the blog or your emails it is my new way of getting the league history and stats into the hands of those who care about stuff like that.

It was a fun project and motivated me to research some numbers that have previously been buried across numerous files and programs. The Yearbook contains the data pages that were found in the EHFL Links module on the website. You will also find pages (tabs) for every league franchise going back to our founding in 1980. Emailing the info means I don't have to go through the issues I've had finding and maintaining hosting sites. 

I have enhanced some of the numbers from previous stat pages a bit. I went through my Hughes News archives and found the final scores for every playoff game. Those have been added to the Playoff History page. 

It took a bit more work to find the PPG for every team through our 45 seasons. The more recent seasons were right there on our websites for previous years. But finding and sometimes calculating the data from the previous years was a bit harder. But it's all there. Check out the All-Time Standings page and you will see the PPG as well.

As you might imagine scrounging through those old Hughes News issues and Stat Sheets brought up some interesting numbers. Here are some of the better ones...

• In 1983 the Nats scored ONE point in Week 6 then rebounded with weeks of 56 and 57 points. Back in those TD-only days, numbers could really go to extremes.
• The 1984 Giants averaged 37 PPG. Two other teams barely squeaked over 30 and seven clubs were in the low to mid 20s. It was one of the most dominant performances of the TD years.
• In 1991 the Strawmenn scored 17 or fewer points in 11 of their 14 games yet managed to go 7-7 with that 14.9 PPG. Yes, that is the lowest average in our history. 
• In 2005, our second year of Performance Scoring, the Blizzard averaged 48 points a game. Two years prior the Bombers had a 40+ PPG with TD Only scoring!

Speaking of Performance Scoring...

When we entered the 'modern' world of Fantasy Football in 2004 I figured tied games would nearly become a thing of the past. But in that very first season, the Nats were involved in TWO playoff ties! They finished their Wildcard game with the Ridgebacks knotted at 109. That shouldn't have been an issue as I had a plan in place... a tiebreak player option was a MFL option. The thing was I had failed to notify the playoff teams that they needed to choose one. I couldn't retroactively revive our previous tiebreak (Total yards by starters) or just call the Tiebreak players a draw and skip to the 2nd tiebreak (TDs by Starters). 

Luckily for me Bobby, who was to play the winner of that Nats-Rbacks game, suggested a three-team contest with the winner moving on to the Hughes Bowl. Ultimately, the Nats won that 3-headed Semi with 115 points to Bobby's 112 and Dave's 53. I was glad to escape what could have been a league-breaking mistake. 

But, as you might have figured, the Nats and Giants played to a 79-all TIE in the Hughes Bowl. Tony Gonzalez' big day won the title for the Nats as their tiebreaker and that memory has faded into the mist. More or less.

BTW.. if you read carefully you may have noticed that the Nats won three rounds of playoffs scoring only three more points than their opponents!

Another interesting thing about that tied Nats-Rbacks Wildcard game is that the Nats went into Monday night trailing by 72 points(!). They chipped away all through the Chiefs-Titans game until KC quarterback Trent Green's TD pass with 32 seconds left gave Dan enough points to throw the Hughes League into chaos. According to my semi-hysterical Hughes News recap a penalty on the Titans had moved the ball from a spot (the Titan's 19) that would have given Dan six points and a win with that TD. Back then QBs got a point for every 20 yards. If Green had thrown that ten additional yards we would have avoided all that mess (and Dave would have suffered a heartbreaking, last-minute defeat). 

Here is a list of all our playoff ties:

The Sticks pounded Attica 82-26 in the 1988 Semifinals. Attica crushed the Holes 81-27 in the 2002 Wildcard round. Those were both in the TD-only era. I started counting the number of times in the performance-scoring years that teams have failed to reach 80 points in a playoff game. I stopped at 40 with a long way to go. Crazy that teams could run up totals like that in the early years.

With the playoff scores in front of me, I dug for the highest and lowest game totals in our history. Because of course, I did. Breaking it down by scoring method, here is what I discovered:

Okay, maybe we should first do a 'Taylor Swift' and define the 'eras'. 😉 TD Only Scoring is actually TD+Kicker Points. It ran from 1980 thru 2002. Performance Scoring added yardage in addition to TDs and kicking. There were adjustments made during this period including PPR and 1/2 PPR for runningbacks and receivers. I'm not concerning myself with that level of detail. But I have defined the two lineup types which certainly made changes to our scores. From 2004 through 2017 we used seven players in our lineups. In 2018 we added an eighth player as a 'flex' option. These charts cover the extreme scores for all three scoring 'eras'. We'll look at Game Scores first.

Interesting things in the chart include my Flyers' involvement in the lowest-scoring games of the TD era—and winning both times. Attica was involved in both of the TD Era's high-scoring games, winning in 2003 and losing in 1986. The Bliz popped up three times. 

And next is the rollcall of fame and futility...individual team playoff scores. 

If I had included the top two scoring efforts in this chart you would have noticed that Attica had the second-highest game totals for TD and No Flex Performance games. He had 81 points in his 2003 Wildcard game and 135 in 2014, again in a Wildcard game, again a point off the top score in that era. I love stats!

I hope to eventually reconstruct scores for every regular season game in our history,  Those from 2003 forward, our MFL years, won't be too hard. Those are just a matter of copying and pasting from each year's site into a spreadsheet and formatting them. The prior years offer a wide variety of challenges. Some I might already have as spreadsheets, others I'll have to glean from handwritten stat pages or reconstruct completely using Jim Nichols' team record pages that he kept for our early seasons. Hey, it keeps me off the streets, yes? 

League Notes: MFL has rolled over the leagues for the 2025 season. I will decide soon whether to move forward with this thing. They are offering a $20 discount for renewing before the summer. That would make the cost for our league $90. This is $20 higher than just a few years ago. It's not an unreasonable cost when you consider we spread it out over 12 teams but it is approaching a point where I may seriously consider moving this thing to ESPN, NFL.com, or the like. 

I've been reluctant to consider moving in the past because I know I'd miss the customization MFL allows. However, I have seen that the new owners are advertising for programmers, which might mean an overhaul is being considered. 

If I renew and set up for the 2025 season, I will hold off on scrambling the schedule, which I do every season. I want to wait until the NFL announces its schedule so we can avoid playing division games during those dreaded '6 Team Bye' weeks. That may not be possible but one can hope.

Unless something significant comes up this will be the last Hughes News for a while. I'll send out emails when and if we crank up the '2025 league.

Ellis is joined by her cousin from Evanston, Baby Aìda!

Love this one from Rufus Wainwright and Sara Bareilles

Putting a Bow On It!

 

Aaaaand we are done. With the Saturday meetup and the Second Season Contest concluding we can safely say goodnight to the 2024 season. First things first...

The Second Season...

Okay, I've never watched any of the Pirates of The Caribbean flicks but I know that the main guy's name is Jack. That seems appropriate today as Jack and his Pirates won the Second Season contest and came from back in the pack to do so. Here are the Top Four finishers and their waiver $$ rewards:

1. Jack  $35
2. Keith  $20
3. Dan  $10
4. Bobby  $5

Bobby ended up beating me for the last cash spot by less than a point and a half. Sound familiar?

I had mixed feelings about this year's version of the contest. It was more work to set up and maintain. OTOH we had a good response (11 of 12 teams participated) and the less restrictive method of choosing players kept more teams in the mix to some extent. Feedback is always welcome.

Saturday Fun:

Six of us got together (James was the foto guy so he's not in the picture) on Saturday and we spent several hours swapping stories and memories and kicking around the league and its history. Bobby had family commitments which caused him to miss it again but we're solving that by scheduling next year's gathering at his house.! 😉😀

Cactus Cove is a pretty nice setup for us. After the Kentucky hoops watch party ended, we commandeered the big table. Prices are reasonable, the food is good, and the folks are friendly. It worked out fine. (But I still think we were shorted a plate of our apps! LOL.) Thanks to Bobby, who forwarded me some money toward our tab, and to Padilla, who gifted me with a personalized beer glass commemorating the '24 Flyers title. TY, Bobby and Mike!

League Doings: I have not considered any changes for the league. I think we are at a sweet spot with roster numbers, transaction limits, and IR limits. I've heard no complaints about the scoring system. I always welcome suggestions and ideas on how we can improve. 

If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, you will see that the cost of our league site is now $110. That's the second (or third?) bump since MFL changed ownership a few years ago. I know office rents in Austin can get crazy, but jeez. There is no mention of the Early Bird discount that they had previously. They may still do that. EDIT:Link in above paragraph fixed

Our standard trophy cost was up $10, I think.* I could go cheaper with a plaque or one of those fake marble old-school deals but I think everyone likes the engraved acrylic trophies. 

I will calculate the league costs for 2025 and let you know. I'm not going to bug everyone about ponying up this year. That gets old for everybody. Please pay promptly. I will send only one or two reminders. 

I was going through our old newsletters and saw that I charged $45 a team in the late 80s when we were paying off for high week and division titles, etc. The cost per team is less than half that now. Just saying.

*= I spent extra on my trophy this year but that came out of my pocket. 

EDIT: I'm going to have playoff week waivers run the same as regular season waivers. A blind bid session processing on Wednesday night, and an FCFS window that runs from Thursday morning through Sunday kickoff. NFL scheduling quirks may dictate a tweak or two but other than that this is much simpler for everyone. 

Be On The Lookout: I've been busy with a project that puts all our statistical history in one spot, an Excel workbook. I have gotten tired of jumping through the hoops needed to post all the things you have found in the EHFL Links module of our league site. 

Doing it this way I can send it out once a year and not have to worry that the hosting site has booted me or cratered. I have found that I can convert the thing to a Google Sheets workbook for those without Excel. It probably won't have the same formatting but it should be comparable. 

The 'EHFL Yearbook', for lack of a better name, is just about finished. I should be sending it out in the next week. Thanks to Rick, Jack, and Mike Padilla for their assistance in this. 

The late Gary Brooker. Through the years doing this incredible song. 

The full version with all extra verses. 

Gonna bow out with these from leftfield: Moby's Porcelain Live featuring the late Diane Charlemagne.

An acoustic cover of Chris Isaak's Wicked Game by Kfir Ochaion.

Ahoy Mates! (and meetup details) (and a call for volunteers)

Officially it is not official but it looks to all the world that Jack has this 2nd season thing in his pocket. He's not leading but has several players that the teams ahead of him don't have. I'd do the permutations but they give me a headache these days. In short... Keith is a sitting duck, Dan has an outside chance to stay ahead of his kid, James can't catch the leaders and the rest of us are along for the ride.

While updating the statistical spreadsheets as I do after every season I came across some errors (Oh, the horror!) in my postseason numbers. I decided to just dig into the numbers and start from scratch. It's tedious work made more tedious by the fact that I need to double (and triple) check everything. 

If any of you guys have a free half hour or so I would appreciate a second set of eyes to tabulate some team(s)' postseason record. Here's what this entails... From the updated Postseason results spreadsheet I would ask you to add up the following for a team:

Postseason Appearances (i.e. # of years a team made the playoffs)

PS Games Played

PS W/L

Division Titles

League Titles

W/L for each round as below

• WC/1st Rd
• Semifinals
• Hughes Bowl

I have some teams finished (Flyers, Giants, Strawmenn) but with those teams, I could use a recount LOL You could do a couple of teams if so inclined. If you can help just send word and I will send you the updated Postseason results sheet (the one posted in the Links section of the league page is flawed).  I can send along a tally sheet to make it easier. 

This is all part of revamping and streamlining my stats workbooks. Uploading individual stat sheets to the Links section is a pain and the site I use is quirky. I'm consolidating all my numbers and history stuff into a single workbook which I can email to anyone interested. But that comes later. For now, I just want to get my Postseason numbers correct.

Thanks In Advance!

Now, see below for info on the Houston Meet-And-Greet!

Houston Meetup next Saturday! (Feb. 8)

Let's aim for 2 p.m. at Cactus Cove, the same spot as last year. I plan to get there early and hopefully nail down one of the big tables like we had last year. I also need the time to use the crane to unload my trophy from the flatbed. 🤣 Feel free to come as early as 1:30. CC is on W. 11th just west of Ella Blvd. In case you've forgotten you can check the map for the location. 

Unless I hear otherwise I will be expecting all the Houston guys. The trophy, Hughes News Championship Edition, and maybe Ellis Rose, the Hughes League Queen, will be there!

Be there or be 🀆

The Dukes of September  I wish they would reprise this collab!

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much."  -Eric Cantona, MUFC Legend

Oh, About Those Dogs...

 

Woof!!

First to worst is a thing and it bit David this week in the Postseason contest. After grabbing the lead in Week One he dropped to the bottom of the Week Two numbers. He's still in a money spot, though, and as they say in poker, "All you need is a chip and a chair!"

Rick took the permutation reins* and thinks James is going to be difficult to catch. I've been too busy to mess with that sort of task so I'll take his word for it. It's not surprising since James always seems to do well in this thing. Dan as well and his Fish are right there in second.

I had two goals when I decided to crank this up. #1 was to get as many of you guys involved as I could. #2 was to not finish last. At least #1 worked out. 💀

*=According to the googles it is 'reins'. Learn something new all the time.

Houston Meetup!

Targeting Saturday, February 8th. The day before the Super Bowl has become a tradition of sorts. Time and place are TBD but I'd expect it to be around 1:30 or 2ish at a spot on the west side of town.  I thought Cactus Cove worked out pretty well last year so I'm leaning toward returning there but other spots, like one of the On The Kirb locations, NettBar Shady Acres (which I considered last year), or maybe Cottonwood on North Shepherd. I'm open to other suggestions. 

I hope all the local guys can be there.  Stay tuned for finalized details.

Almost forgot Music Corner!

How Bout Them Dogs?!

Announcement...

Keep Saturday, February 8th open for our annual Houston meetup! I haven't finalized a location but figure on something on the west side of town as usual, early to mid-afternoon. I hope all the local runners-up can make it!

Now... on to the regular business...

Well, David got off to a nice start in the Postseason Challenge, and he is on top of the pack after a week of Wildcard games. Keith is right on his tail, and then there is a gap to the rest of us. I use the term 'us' loosely as I'm currently trying to find a periscope to see above the water. 

Then again, he has five players out of the NFL Playoffs now. Can the leaders sustain their momentum? It is interesting to see the different approaches to roster building. I took some time and posted the results below, with the eliminated players in red. You'll need to click the table to make it large enough to view. 

Meanwhile.....

Click the table to view it in a larger size!

A few versions of a great song!

Second Season Essentials

UPDATE...Saturday, Jan 11th:

Looks like we have all eleven teams in the house! Rosters can be viewed after the first kickoff today. Good luck to all and check back here as I will be posting (probably) updates as the NFL Playoffs continue. I'll also have updates on the Houston Get-together. 

UPDATE...Monday, Jan 6th:

The Contest site is now operational. You can pick your players (reminders below). 

The non-NFL Playoff teams have been filtered out so you should only see eligible players on the selection page.

I set the deadline for finalizing your choices for 3:30 CENTRAL Saturday, the kickoff of the first Wildcard game. Please don't cut it that close.  

The league-wide rosters will remain unavailable to view until I flip the switch at the deadline. (or as soon after that point as I can get to my keyboard. 

 

I thought putting all things related to the Postseason Contest in one place for easy referral would be a good idea. 

The site is here: https://www47.myfantasyleague.com/2024/home/68896#0 and is also linked under the banner of the EHFL site.

Here is an outline of how this works:

I will award 2025 waiver cash to two top finishers ($35/$20). If all 12 of us play I'll add a 3rd place award.

Since we had almost a full house of EHFL owners I think we'll add some prize waiver money to the pot. As follows:

• 1st Place =$35
• 2nd Place =$20
• 3rd Place=$10
• 4th Place = $5

Third and fourth don't pay much but $10 is equal to a bonus Blind Bid claim or a nice kicker for a bid you'd really like to win. The $5 for fourth place will get you a Free Agent. Don't laugh, I picked up Adam Theilen as a $5 FCFS claim and the guy helped me win the league averaging 13+ over the last five weeks. 

You will pick 13 NFL playoff players, 2 QB, 3 RB, 4 WR, 2 TE, and 2 K.

Unlike the old Second Season, you are NOT restricted to two players per NFL playoff team, in other words...
-You can load up with as many players from the Packers, Bills, etc as you want to. Or spread the wealth and cover more teams, it's your call
-You can make changes up to the first NFL Playoff kickoff, but...
-Once the NFL Playoffs start your rosters are locked, no changes for any reason
-We will use the same scoring system as the Hughes League
-No tiebreaks, in the event of a tie I will divide the cash evenly or if more than two teams are involved award a TBD amount to each

Things to know:

Read the message on the Contest site for most of the essential details. 

Also...the site is stripped down as much as possible since all we need is to pick a roster and check scores each week. 

You cannot currently pick a team as I have turned off that ability until the NFL Playoffs are set. 

Once that rolls around here is how you will pick your roster. 

Go to Transactions--->Set Roster
Select your players:
2 QB
3 RB
4 WR
2 TE
2 PK

This screen is almost identical to the one you use to make waiver claims in our regular season. See the screenshot below.

You will be able to make changes to your roster at any time before that first playoff game! a point close to the first NFL playoff kickoff. See the calendar on the site. 

Once you have selected them click the Load Roster button below the player windows.

If you don't select the correct # of players for each spot you'll get an error message when you Load Roster and you'll have to start over. 

Until the rosters lock you can use the same method to change players on your roster.

MFL says they will filter out NFL teams that are not in the playoffs once the NFL playoff teams are set and Week 18 ends.

Rosters are not visible to other owners until the deadline. 

I will delete any team that hasn't picked a roster by the deadline to keep things tidy and because I'm allergic to zeros.

Pro tips...
Use the team/position/name filters below the 'Select Players To Add' Window.

It would be helpful to have your players listed on paper, do one position at a time, and double-check your work. 

Lemme know if you have questions!

Flyers Win HB44!

With the final whistle of the Dolphins-Browns game on Sunday, Flyer fans everywhere celebrated the end of a long drought as the team clinched the EHFL crown by winning Hughes Bowl 44 over the Nationals. 

The championship, which came 14 years to the day since their last crown, stretched out over nearly a week but it may have been over on Day One (Wednesday). Derrick Henry steamrolled the Texans and gave the Flyers a healthy Christmas cushion. The Nats held their own through the Thursday and Saturday games but HB MVP Baker Mayfield extinguished any faint hopes the Nats might have had with his 34.5 (369 years/5 TDs) performance in the early Sunday window. Adam Thielen kicked in 25.5 points to help offset the below-standard output of the other receivers. Everything after those Herculean efforts was meaningless as the Flyers were not to be caught. Once Deebo Samuels finished his mop-up duty on Monday night the final score was 132.86 to 84.16 in favor of the Flyers. 

Notes... their three winning playoff games were the first postseason wins by the Flyers since 2018... this game evens their Hughes Bowl record at 6-6 and ties them with the Nats for the most titles...in fact, the Nats and Flyers have identical Hughes Bowl records as both are 6-6 in 12 Hughes Bowl games...this win gives the Flyers a 2-1 lead in head-to-head Hughes Bowl games versus the Nats although the Nats are 4-3 in the postseason against the Flyers overall... The margin of victory for the Flyers (47.74 points) is the second largest in Hughes Bowl history behind only the 2013 game when the Bombers doubled up the Bliz 114-57... 

The Flyers are the third straight Wildcard club to win the Hughes Bowl, the fourth in the last five seasons. Over the prior 14 seasons only one Wildcard had taken home the trophy, the 2012 Giants... the Flyers' total in the game (132.86) is the fourth-highest Hughes Bowl-winning score... Mayfield's 34.5 points were the most by a player in the Hughes Bowl since 2020 when Devonte Adams scored 37 for the Giants and Stefon Diggs put up 36 for the Nationals... malik Nabors was held out of practice all last week by the NYG and his iffy status led Dan to sit him for the Hughes Bowl. Of course, he went off for 32+ points. He wouldn't have won the game for the Nats but he'd have made it much more interesting... my point here is that sometimes you're better off NOT knowing. 

Off-The-Wall Stuff...2024 marks the fifth consecutive season in which the Lombardi winner got a bye and then LOST in the Semifinals. And you can't blame one team for this 'honor' as each Lombardi club has been involved. ¯\_㋡_/¯ ... this loooong NFL weekend (Wednesday-Monday) seemed to drag the Hughes Bowl on forever. But it was not the first time we've had a 'Six Day Hughes Bowl' game. In 2010 the NFL postponed a Sunday night Vikings-Eagles game in Philly due to a blizzard. They played it Tuesday night to wrap up the schedule which had begun on Thursday and the Flyers hung on through a Mike Vick onslaught and beat the Giants 81-70... 

The Flyers and Nats had a combined $9 in waiver cash when the season ended. Don't jump to conclusions as Dan and I are the league's acknowledged 'panic buyers'. When we were done, the other four playoff teams had an average of $132... 2024 marks the first time in Hughes League history that we had a three-way tie for best regular season record with the Bombers, Nats, and Flyers posting 10-4 marks... it is also the first time two teams tied for most points. Okay so the Bombers had a quarter point more than the Flyers but I can't make the standings chart parse it out to two decimal places so it appears as a tie. 

Off-Season Work...first things first, I am not going to renew the league with MFL until I'm sure I want to continue with it into a 46th year. I've mentioned before that we are like an expired cell phone contract, we're now working month to month. It'll cost a bit more if I renew later in the summer but that's how it is... once/if I renew I will clean up the mess I made of the postseason waiver calendar. Dealing with the league calendar is always a confusing mess and tacking on special waiver windows and adjusting times just worsens it. Wednesday games are almost as bad an idea as two competing MNF games... and, from the "Nobody gives a damn but me" Department, I'll have the stats files all updated thru 2024 in the next week or so and I'll be working on the Hughes News Champs Edition soon. 😉😊

League Things... 

A) The postseason contest we've run the last several years (The Second Season) is up in the air. If I'm reading the site correctly they are charging $20 for a league with over five entries. I'd rather not go through the collecting money 'thing' so I may try to find an alternative site. MFL has free postseason leagues but I don't know how they work. If they have a 'set 'em and forget 'em' option similar to what we've been doing that would probably work.  I'll check on them this week. 

EDIT...The Postseason Contest is live on a MFL site. Check here for details. You need to contact me for an invite and accept it by Friday, January 3 at 10 pm Central. 

B) I will decide on a postseason get-together and let everyone know the details soon. We've had good luck with meeting up on the Saturday of Super Bowl Weekend (February 8th this year) so that is a likely date. We've rotated the location every year but Cabin Creek worked out well for us last time so I'll look at doing that again. Other ideas are more than welcome. 

Gonna wrap up this year's Music Corner with my favorite songs.. two (or three) versions of each. 

Wrapping up this final regularly scheduled edition of the Hughes News with my grandkids enjoying their holidays!