Week Two

 Call the Doctor!

Maybe it's always like this and I'm just overreacting. I dunno. But it sure seems like the injuries to key players are mounting at an alarming rate. Three QBs went down this week (I'm not including Justin Herbert who isn't hurt but he is killing me for fucks sake). I suspect the waiver wire will be a popular destination between now and Wednesday evening. 

Random League Thoughts... we have two teams at 2-0, two at 0-2, and eight at 1-1. I don't think that means anything in particular but I found it interesting (it last occured in '23)... our league-wide scoring average was down over 11 points from Week One (109.05--->97.82). it might be a reflection of the injuries, or maybe not... last year the average jumped from Week One (90.09-->95.50)... 

...Giants doing a nice job of winning while adhering to the 'Zero RBs' approach... I bet it's been awhile since a team had both its QBs get KO'd like the Heroes, but Hogan managed to grab a win... We have two teams approaching the 300 win milestone, the Smenn and the Giants. I have a countdown (count up?) going on the homepage...

I've disabled (I hope) the 'pop-up' notifications for the league site as they were deemed too annoying. I thought I'd filtered them to where you only saw them once and then not again until there was an important notice but I failed, apparently. There are quite a few switches to throw in the template code to get stuff like that done so if you are still getting them, let me know. 

I've added the 'Pending Trade' module to the top right column of the league homepage. You should also subscribe to 'trade offer' email in the My Franchise-->Franchise setup --> Contact info dropdown.

The Ed Hughes Book

The locals saw this at the draft but I wanted to share it with everyone. Over the years I've collected quite a bit of memorabilia (ephemera is probably more accurate a term) related to Coach Hughes. It's displayed on the News blog here via the Ed Hughes Tribute page linked on the right. But, after many stops and starts, I finally sat down and organized it all. I thought the huge-ass binder was going to be too big but as it turns out I needed it. Below are a few pics giving you an idea of what it contains. 

The plate on the front came from our trophy provider. It's the only cheap, free shipping purchase I've ever made with them! Turned out nice I think.

I loosely organized it with oddball items, trading cards, and autographs first. (You can click any pic to expand it). 

I have some league historical things in there that are not directly related to CEH. A bit of Flyers and '71 Oilers stuff as well.

I've updated the Hall of Fame for the league and dug up a card for every player included. Yes, that's a signed Eric Dickerson. 

The 'Type 1' photos are next.

And finally the game programs from his college, pro playing and coaching career. 

Numbers 45-->41

And a bonus track!

Someone had a birthday yesterday!!!

One Week Down...

 ...And Thirteen To Go!

I say it every single year... your team isn't as good or as bad as it looks at this moment. There's a long way to go in the season and there are plenty of twists and turns to come. You only need look back at last season and the Blizzard. They started 7-0, finished at 8-6 and were lucky to get that. Ya never f'ing know. But just for grins let's take a look around the landscape today, shall we? 

The R'backs scored 131+ points...and lost. I went back to see how many time that's happened and was surprised by the number. Its actually the 10th occurrence. The last time was Week 8 in 2022 when the Flyers fell to the Smenn, 153+ to 130+. Our highest ever losing score was posted by the Holes in Week 8 of 2015. They scored 151 points but fell 4 points short of the Blizzards' 155... 

...at this moment in time, the Andrews and Scofield families are 4-0. That's only happened once before, in 2019... Hogan swapped out Caleb Williams for Jaxon Dart on Sunday morning. Williams would have won his game for him...been there, done that more times than I care to count... I have no damn idea why the scoreboard showed all zeros after the Monday Night game ended. It's a weird glitch I've seen in the past and it disappears within a half hour. I need to check with the template developer...

The average score for this week of 109.5 is the second highest opening week average in our history (we went to 8 player lineups in 2018) . The highest Week 1 average was 110 in 2020... this week's average score was NINETEEN points higher than last year's Week 1 average of 90.09...

Last season the only Heroes (102+) and the Rbacks (100) hit 100 points in Week One. This year EIGHT teams broke 100... Here's my Week One Public Service Announcement: Dump the idea that post-draft evaluations by any of the numerous websites around that do that sort of thing mean anything. They are all full of shit. 

Techie Things...

You probably saw the emails on Monday night when Rick hit the wrong switch and dropped AJB instead of moving him to IR. That's very easy to do these days as the new template has multiple options on both the IR and Taxi Squad pages. Do yourself a favor and double-check your work before hitting the Perform IR/TS Move button. I've always happy to fix an error but I may be out-of-pocket or away from the computer and unable to jump in right away. Plus, doing commish stuff on my phone has proved to be problematical.

It's too late now but while checking into another question about the Taxi Squad I found the solution to my issue of last week. Turns out there is a setting that I could have turned on at the original Thursday deadline that would have allowed TS players to remain in place and also kept them from being replaced once they were promoted. I only needed to change the eligibility requirement switch from 'Rookie' to 'None'. I'm going to leave the system in place and if we use the TS again in the future I can use that setting if that's what we want to do. 

And be aware... you cannot claim a rookie directly to the Taxi Squad. He must be picked up on waivers (bidding or Open) and then moved to the TS from your regular 15-man roster. 

And finally... I'll take a look at the modules I have on the front page of the league site and add some that may be useful in-season. There is a lot of useful stuff contained in the tabs just above the helmet bar. Check out the Reports tab for sure. The submenu of tabs under that one has a lot to offer. Suggestions on the layout of the site are always welcome. 

Just for grins I'm going to list my favorite songs, in a very loose order, over the next ten weeks. I'll try to use a video from the original artist or a cover that I love. I did NOT spend any time refining my rankings. Like I said, it's a very loose order, especially 20 thru 50. 

Here are 50 down to 46: 

Today was Grandparents' Day at Ellis' preschool. It simply doesn't get much better than this.

Mobile Apps for MFL

Its been awhile since I looked into mobile device apps for Myfantasyleague. A couple apps that have been around forever are still out there, seemingly unchanged. A couple of new ones have popped up in the past year or two and they look pretty slick with much more modern interfaces. All of them seem to do the job.

First things first... I have the league set to be 'mobile friendly' with a customized look when viewing the site on your phone with any browser. I do any 'commish duties' that way since I see the regular pages and I can find things easily. But on game days I use an app to check scores. 

Three of the apps listed below are available for both Apple and Android devices. the fourth one, I dunno because a cursory Google search turns up info on a similarly named app tied to Brothers printers. I'll go through the apps and a desktop program along with links and screenshots, etc.

First up, the oldies. These have been around for ages and they don't seem to have changed since the Carter administration. But they both work fine.

MFL Platinum is my go-to. Probably because I've used it for so long. It is free and available for Apple and Android devices. You can edit the panes so the ones you use most often are at the top and you can hide ones you don't want. It works for multiple MFL leagues and its easy to switch back-and-forth.

Some of these panes are just links to our site but I don't use tham much anyway.

MFL Mobile is the first one I used way back in the day and I'm not sure why I switched. It is listed as the 'official' app for MFL leagues but that doesn't give it any advantage that I can see. It has all the same options as Platinum plus you can by-gawd change the color scheme to match your favorite NFL team, LOL. It is also free and works with multiple MFL leagues. There is a premium (paid) version apparently which does away with an ad at the bottom but whatever. It is available on both platforms.

Now for the newbies.

MFL Pro looks pretty slick. I've only had it for a day on my phone but I can see myself using it as my primary app. There is no webpage for it that I can find but it is available in the Apple Appstore. Maybe one of you Android guys could search Google Play and see if it's there. As far as I can tell it's free to use and I was able to view both MFL leagues I'm involved in. EDIT: The 'free' version is 'read only' which makes it fine to use to keep up with scores on a Sunday but in order to manage your team you would need to upgrade at a cost of $7. 

There is some sort of AI component that I have not had a chance to mess with but it might be something worthwhile. 

And finally we have MFL Modern. It's another one that I just discovered. In the small time I've had to play with it I can see that I likely will be deleting it from my phone before long. It has a nice looking, modern (duh) interface but I see no reason to recommend it over the other three. The interface is dark with no setting to change it. The 'commish tools' button simply links to the page on our website. It is restricted to one league in the free version. and worst of all, the scores were running waaaay behind. 

The paid plans add various features like multiple league support, a league chat (LOL, I can't get you guys to read emails, nevermind a league chat!), The highest paid plan gives you league and team advice apparently. There is a help and support page and I may send the guys some observations but I can't see paying for (or even using the free version) when there are better options. Its new so I'll wager they will fix the lag in the updates so I will keep tabs on it to see how it evolves.

In this screenshot note the game score hadn't changed from the Wednesday & Thursday night totals even 2 and a half hours into Sunday's games!

I cut off the bottom of this screenshot but the 'Edge Premium level is $25 and the league chat costs the same. Hard pass for me. 

And now for something completely different (and older then my Keds Hi-tops)

MFL Gameday Program has been around since MFL started and I first used it when we joined up in 2003. I've used it sporadically ever since. It's a desktop program that will track the same stuff and app tracks plus more. You can have it open on your computer and it updates constantly, both fantasy and NFL games. The interface hasn't changed...ever. I don't spend a lot of time on Sundays in front of the computer (or TV for that matter) but I used to use this all the time to download the Hughes boxscores that I would mail publish in Excel and mail or email out. that should give you a hint of how old it is. It seems like ages ago that the MFL folks said they were abandoning this program and yet here it is with a 2026 version. 

If you want to play around with it the link is here. I found that the link said '2026 version' but I got the 2025 version on install. You'll also probably get a few warning about the site/page being unsafe but you can ignore those. They stem from it being created on a Sinclair 1000 in 1982 I believe. ;-) 

I was able to update it in the options tab. Same thing goes for the player database. It gets an update every week. Click the screenshot here to get the full experience, such as it is.

I messed this up, I'm gonna fix it.

My intention with the Taxi Squad, as I've noted many times, was for it to be a one-time deal with each team optionally adding a rookie to the TS slot before the September 10 deadline and then being able to promote/activate that player at any time during the season. Once the rookie was activated the team's TS slot was supposed to close.

Turns out I didn't read the 'fine print', or at least not closely enough. As a result I've discovered that I can't put an option in place that would allow Taxi Squad 'promotions' that would automatically close the Taxi Squad option for that team. I either have to leave that window open until I can intervene, or turn TS actions off for everyone and be the TS 'gatekeeper' and have an owner contact me to make the promotion on their behalf. Both of those options suck for a variety of reasons.

I've talked to a couple of owners for opinions. Rick had a suggestion... just opening up the Taxi Squad for everyone again and leaving it open. In other words allow more than one Taxi Squad player during the year. The limit would still be rookies only, one-at-a-time, and the promoted player could not be sent back to the same team's Taxi Squad again (there is definately a way to prevent that automatically). But, once cleared via a promotion or drop, the slot could be filled with some other rookie. 

I'm very reluctant to make what sort of feels like an in-season rule change. OTOH, I hate (even more) having to do hands-on shit like making the promotion for someone... I might not be free to do it in time, etc. 

Therefore, the open it up option looks to be by far the easiest for me. 

So, here is the deal:

• I'm opening the Taxi Squad back up for everyone, even the teams that skipped the initial window.

• The TS window will remain open all season for all teams whether or not they want to use it. 

• Still only one slot, and still only rookies are eligible.

• You can promote or drop that Taxi Squad rookie at any time during the year. 

• Once a rookie is promoted or dropped he can't go back to that same team's Taxi Squad. But he can be used as a Taxi Squad rookie by a second team if acquired thru a claim or trade. Waiver fees still apply as usual.

• Once empty, the Taxi Squad slot can be filled with a different rookie if desired.

• There is no limit to how many times you can change your TS player but remember that you can't 'demote' the same rookie to your TS twice.

Note: I have a question about the issue of the ban from demoting the same player back to the Taxi Squad. The setting clearly disallows that but what is NOT clear to me is whether or not a different team could demote that player if he was picked up as a free agent or in a trade. I have a question on this currently uploaded to the MFL folks and will edit here once they respond with the clarification. The question has been answered by MFL, see underlined text above. 

Pro Tip: You can drop a player from your 15-man roster and promote a Taxi Squad rookie in one action from the Taxi Squad page. Just doule-check your work before finalizing the move because there are a lot of checkboxes on that page. 

That's it. I hope the change doesn't piss off anyone but it's the best option for all concerned. I don't want to have to apologize for not seeing a "Promote Mty Rookie!" text too late and cause someone to lose out on a win. 

As I also mentioned before the season, we can re-evaluate the Taxi Squad after the season to see if we should continue with it.

Your thoughts are always welcome.