A week or so back I saw a story on the Footballguys site written by Clayton Gray. He was relating his 'origin story'... i.e...how he got into fantasy football. He asked for stories from his readers so I sent in the tale of how the Hughes League came to be. He was impressed with how long we've been together. He wants to crash out 50th Draft which I'm already thinking about.
The site published our story (and several others) on August 7th and it's pretty cool. You can check it out using this link. It is not paywalled so anyone can get to it.
Without you guys being such a good group I wouldn't have been able to sustain this thing for so long. I salute you!
In other news....🤣
I'm collecting the 2026 league fee. It's $22 and your prompt attention is appreciated. I sent an email with the details. Thanks to those who have already ponied up for the season.
Draft info will be emailed and posted every damn place once I have a location secured. Be there or be square!
Edit: Please check the email of August 7 for 2026 payment info. Our cost this season is $22 per owner. Thanks!
Here's how we'll roll through the Opening Week of the season:
Monday, September 7: Draft at 6:30 p.m.Central until 9 or 9:30ish. Later that night I will upload the rosters to our site from the Draft Board software. You can demote a rookie to the Taxi Squad once I've done that.
Tuesday, September 8: Open waivers begin at 8 a.m. Central. You can fill any open spots on your roster. We draft 14 so everyone will have an empty slot post-draft. Putting a rookie on the TS will create another one if applicable. Now is also the time to fix a drafting 'mistake'! 😏
Your first two claims are free during Opening Week. I will load up to $10 back into your waiver $$ account. Anything over 2 claims is on you.
Wednesday, September 9: The NFL kicks off at 7:20 p.m. with the Pats and Seahawks. I considered moving the league's Thursday deadlines up a day to before this game but we'll just roll with it. If someone jumps out at you that night he's not available as an Open waiver claim since his game has kicked off. He'll be available for bidding beginning Thursday night.
👉To be clear.. Once the Pats and Seahawks kick off on Wednesday night their players are 'locked down' and will no longer be available via this first Open waivers window. And, by extention, any rookie from those two teams will NOT be open for claims or eligible to be put on the Taxi Squad once that game starts.👈
Thursday, September 10: The 'Open' waiver period ends at 6 p.m. Central. At that time the window to add a rookie to your Taxi Squad also closes. Blind Bidding on Free Agents opens at 6:00 as well.
Wednesday, September 16th: Blind Bids will process at 9 p.m. And from that point on we will be following our regular waiver schedule with Open claims from Thursday mornings through Sundays at Noon Central followed by Blind Bidding that processes every Wednesday night.
The proposal to add a Taxi Squad spot in 2026 was passed with a 2/3 majority. It's really pretty simple and I'll go over the details below. First I want to explain why I liked the idea and put it up for a vote.
We are dropping one roster spot (to 15) as per our vote last year. I feel that will free up some talent for the waiver wire but also handicaps us a bit as far as lineup options. Adding the Taxi Squad spot doesn't counteract the roster reduction much and it gives us what I think is an interesting strategy as far as roster construction. Quite a few of us like rolling the dice on rookies (I'm looking at you, Hogan) and with this option we can do that without cramping our rosters. Here is how it works in Q&A form:
Q: Why are we doing this? I thought you wanted to keep things simple.
A: This isn't a change from that. Anything is simple compared to calculating keepers values for 12 rosters of 18 players each and doing spreadsheets for every team. Stuff like this, or adding a second flex, or doing the 'pick your draft slot' thing are just little ways to spice the league up a bit. Some work, some don't. If this proves to be a bad idea we can drop it for 2027.
Q: Do I have to deal with this?
A: Nope, it is entirely optional for everyone. If you don't want to mess with it, you can ignore it.
Q: Why would I want to jack with this?
A: Here's an example...every season NFL clubs will draft some mid-round QBs with the idea that they might nail down the backup role or even serve as the 'get us through the season' starter at some point. Clayton Tune to the Cardinals a couple of years back is a good example. This year Carson Beck is that same guy. Maybe your starter has a rookie behind him. He'd make a good TS candidate to claim for free after the draft. The Ravens drafted an RB who likely won't see much action but if Henry or Hill go down the kid has the talent to help. If you have Henry he might be an option. Stuff like that.
Q: Who goes on the Taxi Squad?
A: Any rookie you either a) draft, or b) claim in the post-draft open claim period (which begins the morning after the draft as always) is eligible. We will draft 14 rounds on Draft Night leaving a 15th spot open to be filled during Open Waivers beginning Tuesday morning. You can use that period to find a hidden gem rookie or use one you drafted. Side note: You use that Open Waiver period to fill your roster whether you use the TS or not. The cost of your first two claims ($10) will be added back to you. Side Note #2: Rookies are designated with (R) after their names in the MFL system.
Q: Where is the page for doing Taxi Squad business? A: Look for the Taxi Squad link under Transactions on the top menu.
Q: How many TS slots are there?
A: One slot, for one-time use. And that slot doesn't count as one of your 15 roster spots.
Q: Can I put a rookie on the TS at any time?
A: You get one, and only one, period to place your NFL rookie on the Taxi Squad.
Q: When can I put a guy on the TS?
A: That period begins after the draft is complete and I've had the chance to upload the rosters. You have to add him before the NFL season's first game. Technically 6 pm Central on Thursday September 10.
Q: Can I have more rookies?
A: Sure! You can draft, claim, drop, trade rookies to your hearts content, as always! But only one can be stashed on the TS and not count against your roster.
Q: Can I switch rookies?
A: Before the TS locks on Thursday the 10th you can swap rookies on or off it but at 6pm on Thursday that option ends.
Q: How long can I keep my TS rookie on the TS?
A: You can keep him on the TS as long as you want this year. You are under no obligation to do anything with him.
Q: How do I put a rookie on the TS and how do I call my TS rookie up to my roster?
A: MFL calls moving a player onto or off your TS 'promoting' and 'demoting'. Once you choose the guy you want to put on the TS use the 'demote' option. You can 'promote' him any old time during the season as long as you have space on your roster. There is also an option to 'drop' your Taxi Squad rookie on the TS page but I'm not sure why you'd do that other than having changed your mind on owning someone before the list locks in the preseason.
Q: If I promote my Taxi Squad rookie can I replace him with a different one on the TS?
A: Nope, once the preseason window closes the rookie on your Taxi Squad is the only one you can place there in 2026.
Q: Can I trade my Taxi Squad rookie?
A: Yes. I learned you can trade him directly from the TS without promoting him when I looked at the setup in the (shitty) dynasty league I was roped into. BUT the team receiving that player needs room on their regular roster because he cannot go on to their Taxi Squad.
There you have it. I made that sound more complicated than it actually is. Think of it this way... between the draft and the first 2026 kickoff you get to throw a rookie into your 'closet'. Once you yank him out, you no longer have a closet.
When: Labor Day, September 7th at 6:30 pm Central, 7:30 Eastern, 5:30 Paz time.
Where: Beats me. I'll let you know.
Details: PrimeTime Draft will again be how we pick online. There is another product I'm still looking at but I'm not sure if I want to venture outside our 'comfort zone'. EDIT: I've now paid for the PTD site so we are using that again for sure. We'll have a Zoom room setup again.
Links for both will be provided via email.
More: We'll draft 14 rounds that night with the usual Open Waivers period beginning Tuesday morning so you can fill gaps.
Specifics will be posted here, on the league site, and via email.
Well, that was fun. Sort of. When I decided to use the 'choose your slot' draft position thing I wasn't envisioning what we went through Wednesday afternoon. First of all, I had used the Draftordergenerator.com site in past years (though not last year). And I did read online that there had been reports of delayed results being emailed out, but I gave it a shot anyway. I'm not sure what the issue was, possibly that I 'copy and pasted' the email addresses from my Gmail contacts.
But, anyway, the league site generator worked fine. And, as a plus, we got through the whole selection process in an afternoon. Based one this league's history, I was figuring it would be late August. So, kudos to you.
The draft order has been entered in the league site. I have no problem with guys trading around. Just let me know before the first of September so I can set up the draft night software. Speaking of which...I found a nicer-looking, more flexible online draft site, and I was gonna adopt it, but I decided that I'd rather just keep the known quantity. I'm not up for doing testing and tutorials.
The Taxi Squad proposal has six votes at the moment. I won't adopt anything that only gets six votes. Let your voice be heard. passed. More details (many more LOL) are coming this weekend right here on the blog.
👉 Note: I added a discussion about a possible Taxi Squad spot below this draft stuff. Check it out.
As I write this, we are six weeks away from the 2026 EHFL Draft! It's scheduled for September 7 at 6:30 Central time. That, once again, is Labor Day, so make your arrangements now.
This year, we will be choosing our own draft slots. We've done this before, and it's a nice addition to the drafting process without getting too crazy or complicated. Here are the basics:
Later this week, I will generate a draft spot selection order using a draft randomizer tool online. The output will likely be labeled as the "draft order," but don't be fooled. The order will indicate the priority for choosing your draft slot.
I will text/email each owner when their opportunity to choose is open. You will have 24 hours from that point to pick your slot from those still available. There will be a running tally in the league message on the home page.
If you fail to respond within 24 hours, your name goes to the bottom of the list.
I hope this goes well, but I guess we will find out. I hesitated to go back to this since responding to these things, reading the news, etc., is, let's face it, problematic here.
Taxi Squad...Yea or Nay?
I've given some thought off and on over the past year to adding a Taxi Squad spot. Here's what it would entail:
One NFL rookie player would be eligible to be placed on the Taxi Squad. He would NOT count against your 16 player roster until activated.*
He would have to be placed on the TS between the end of the draft and the start of the season. He can be someone you drafted, or a FA pickup in that first, post-draft waiver claim window. Once the 'window closes an hour before the first NFL kickoff, the ability to add a player to the TS spot is gone.
Once activated to your regular roster during the season he cannot be demoted again to the Taxi Squad. Obviously you'd need to have an open slot on your roster to activate him to...either via a cut, a trade, placing a guy on IR, etc.
Once you activate your Taxi Squad guy you cannot add another player to it. IOW this is a one-and-done thing. This would be accomplished by me throwing a switch once the season kicks off.
*If you want to place a rookie you drafted in your TS slot it would immediately open a spot for you to add a free agent to fill your roster again.
If you don't draft a rookie, or you don't want a drafted rookie to be your TS guy and want to add a rookie free agent after the draft as your TS guy, I would be able to intervene and make it work.
The more I think about it, the more I like it. It would add a bit of intrique to the draft I think. "Grab this rookie now?" "Wait and add one after the draft?" Lemme know how you feel. I'll put a non-binding poll up on the home page. Happy to hear your thoughts, suggestions, World Cup adventure stories.
New helmets! In other words, another thing that nobody cares about but me. LOL 🤣 But that's OK. Jacking with this keeps me off the streets. (click the graphic to enlarge the graphic)
I thought it was time for a refresh. Over the years I've used helmets I've found at The Helmet Depot, and they have been just fine. Along the way I've kept team-specific folders with helmets I've found there as alternatives (think 40th anniversary helmets from 2019) and the occasional random change I've made to a couple of teams.
This spring and summer I pulled some that I thought might work for each team and got to work modifying them. I used MS Paint and my rather rudimentary PS Elements skills to add clip art and/or a wordmark to each and then ran them through Chat GPT to 'smooth out the edges' and make them look more professional.
I did that for every team except the Blizzard. I never could find anything I liked in the way of clip art, and I think the name cries out for something besides just a wordmark, so I asked for suggestions based on the team nickname and colors and AI came up with that mountain scene.
The 'stand alone' wordmarks under each of the helmets were done in good ol' MS Paint using one of the 600 (only a slight exaggeration) fonts I've downloaded just for that purpose. EDIT: I used ChatGPT to improve the graphic element on a couple of these wordmarks as I was struggling to get them to look presentable.
One thing I could never do on my own was successfully create 'mirror images' of wordmark helmets to use for postseason matchup previews. Chat GPT made that easy. Relatively easy, anyway. For some reason the Flyers helmet, with the Baltimore city flag, took about 20 attempts at getting the reverse image done correctly. AI is a useful tool, but it is far, far from perfect. Here is an early attempt at making a reverse image of the Flyers...
Alrighty then.
But I got everything finished, finally. The new hats are on the website and other places like the Team Profiles page linked over on the right. I hope you like them and I'd love getting some feedback, pro or con.
Other stuff... Not much else to deal with right now. We are still on for a Labor Day draft. I'll get more info out as that draws near.
Last time I posted here I mentioned that I was adding league sites for the seasons we spent prior to our first year on Myfantasyleague.com (2003). I also wanted to 'fix' our established sites since quite a few had degraded over time due to 'link rot' and lost graphics.
It was a long, and sometimes tedious process, but it was also fun and I have it complete. Read on to see what I was able to do. First up, the 'sites that never were':
Before we go any farther.. the sites are all found by clicking the 'Yearly Bests and Websites' link on the right.
MFL allowed me to create a site for each of these seasons. They don't have player databases going back that far so what I was able to do was somewhat restricted. Each of those seasons uses a common 'skin' (they all look alike) and I was able to do the following:
->Create a banner: This was something I've had a lot of fun with. I tried to be era 'appropriate' with these. When I could I included Hughes News graphics from the corresponding year. The 1995 banner I added to the top of this post is an example of that. In other cases I built it around a player or two from the title winning club like the '92 Steve Young banner, or I just created something that I liked for no good reason.
->Season Notes: From the scores and standings, as well as the old Hughes News issues, I came up with a few lines covering what made each season unique. Changes to the league makeup, team shuffles, rule changes, quirky scoring weeks, that sort of thing.
-> Scores, the schedule, and final standings: Entering the schedule, team names and weekly scoring was the 'drudge work' part of all this. But in doing it, and cross-checking the data, I was able to fix some errors I found in the records I was keeping and in what I produced for the Yearbook. I even found at least one correction I needed to make in a Hughes Bowl game score. Luckily none of the 'fixes' changed a game winner at any point.
I also found that I had screwed up the 1983 schedule (see below) but it's too late to do anything about that now. LOL Live and learn.
->Hughes News Examples: Each season has a link near the top of the page to 'Hughes News' which sends you to the Campionship Edition for that season as well as some sample pages of each year's newsletter. Some seasons have one, others have several. Many of the sites have Stat Sheets as well as the newsletters. Since I used the same style of spreadsheet stats for long stretches I didn't include them for each year.
It was fun to go back through the archives and trace the evolution of our communication over the decades. Handwritten/typed with 'rub-on' headlines and letterheads through 'web-posted only', email-only seasons, etc. I'd forgotten stuff like using Quattro Pro, WordPerfect, 'The Commissioner' and assorted other programs to run this thing and get the info out to everyone. I had several flashbacks to using Macintosh desktops and workstations at UH Intramurals and at school in Baytown, and that bulky Gateway 2000 386-SX aka my dear, departed first home machine. (with 2MB of RAM, and 40MB hard drive! LOL).
->Missing/Upgraded Champs Editions: In some seasons, particularly in the early 1990s and early 2000s, I sent the majority of 'newsletters' as emails, or as online, text-only pages. Some title winners during that era never received a 'proper' Hughes News Champs Edition. I've tried to rectify that by putting something more graphical for those teams. These are also part of a different project I'm working on. I've done 5 or 6 as of this writing and I'm planning on doing a few more this summer. In most cases I've included the original 'News' (such as it was) along with the new, updated version. These are all accesible through the season site link as noted above and the Champions News Editions link to the whole history of these newsletters over on the right.
These are the teams who got 'upgraded' Championship Editions:
1991 Nats
1992 Bombers
2000 Nats
2001 Holes
2003 Bombers
2004 Nats
2006 Sticks (upgraded player photos only)
2007 Bombers
The 1992 Champions Edition is shown below. Originally that season had a pretty 'Plain jane', text-only version and I thought I'd bring it into the modern era. The text shown is the original text with some spelling/grammar corrections. The photo is one from the 49ers' 1992 season that I ran through an AI site and I loved the way it came out, (We will discuss AI below). if you look at Bobby's title season site you will see this and the original.
(click to enlarge)
->Misc. stuff: the Hughes Bowl box score, the champ's helmet and the approriate playoff bracket: Both are dsplayed on each year's site.
June Update... Since i got so little responce to this (other than from Jack, Thanks for checking this stuff, Jack!) I decided I'd do something for myself and produce updates for my title wins. I had this one in mind for another season but I did it for 2005 because, fuck it, why not? Other than the 'action photo's uni update, there is no AI involved. I also did tweaks or completly new pages for 1990, 1996 & '97, and 2010.
(click to enlarge)
We began with MFL online in 2003. All our league sites remained up and visible but many had gotten 'unlinked' from my account which meant I had no way to fix anything that had gone sideways. Banners and other graphics which had been housed on my old Flickr or Photobucket accounts were no longer visible and modules with bad/outdated info/links couldn't be removed.
That finally changed when I asked the MFL folks to allow me to access our 2011 page so I could correct a misspelled owners name and have the plaque look more, well, professional. They were kind enough to walk me through that AND they returned all the league sites to my account.
So regaining those sites has allowed me to reinstall some banners. In many cases I recreated the originals or created a new one. I applied the same ‘skin’ and module arrangement that I used for the new league sites to be consistent. I also added a helmet for each champion.
And, again, the Champ's H-News is linked near the top as in the 'new' sites. A few other Hughes News pages are there as well. But, since we were doing things mostly online and eventually via the blog, they are almost all just text-based newsletters. By about 2006, give-or-take, we were totally on the blog and for some of the years all I was producung was stat stuff. I've tossed some examples of those under the Hughes News links as well.
All the stats, rosters, etc. are still available via the regular menues, unlike the '80-'02 sites mentioned above. The system did NOT allow me to do cetain things like remove now-pointless standings columns. Or the 'dead photo' icons that now appear in place of long gone pics for division names I had used for a few years.
After some debate with myself, I decided to 'convert' these to the standard, simple template, at least through 2024. I figured that as we move along I'd leave the previous season site intact for one full season. This also cuts down on the bandwidth for TOS who provides and hosts the new template and all the scripts that make it work.
Using AI...this is certainly becoming a contentious subject as of late. And I understand the debate. No need to get into that here. My use of AI in relation to this project was limited to:
Tweaking some images of players so that they appear in EHFL uniforms.
Having some legacy images 'cleaned up' or enhanced for aesthetics. Old Mac and crude pixel art needed to be fixed.
Adding color to the background on some of the banners I created. A real timesaver and much neater than I could do.
Correcting or suggestions for the code I used to building or tweaking some tables and pages. I could spend an hour hunting down a missing ">" but Chat GPT can do it instantly.
Pulling the text from old News Champs editions that had been converted to image files. I used the text to create the new replacement Champs editions. MS is abandoning/cratering Publisher this fall and I'm racing to save a lot of the work I did with it.
I'm also in the process of creating new helmets for our teams which I may or may not use. AI has had a hand in that.
I don't use AI for spelling/typos/grammar/punctuation where it would actually be useful. 🤣
The Championship Plaque...the site-based one (auto-created by MFL each season) went FUBAR when I added the new sites so I created a new one from scratch. You can view it via the link in the right-hand column. AI helped with fixing the coding I struggled with to align the 'plates' and size the text correctly.
And finally...this was a really fun project that turned into way more work than I anticipated when I began it. But I enjoyed it, truly a labor of love.
I also love feedback and corrections! Please check out as many of the new/old yearly sites as you can, especially those that represent your title(s), and let me know what you think.
Can we all agree that the Statute of Limitations is up on a mistake I made 43 years ago, scheduling the 1983 season? The graphic below is the 'Schedule Validation' page that I generated after entering the schedule into the new/old 1983 season website. Click it, and the problem is evident.
(Click to Enlarge)
We were a twelve-team, two-division league. The idea was that a team played the other five division rivals twice, and four games against teams from the other division. It was supposed to be four games against four different opponents.
As you can see, the Heroes, for example, played three different Wice teams, with two against the Giants. Several other teams had the same scheduling anomaly. The Bombers, the '83 champs, played two games against both the Nats and the Blizzard! Yikes!
If you stuck with me here and read all the way through, thanks. Again, comments/corrections/criticisms and all very much welcome. Enjoy the rest of the break. See everyone soon.
.gif)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
