XLI

 

Here we go, spinning into HB41 after a wacky semi-finals. The less said about the Sticks-Flyers game the better. We can sum it up with an actual photo representation of the Flyers ::ahem:: lineup...

In the interest of being precise the Sticks won, 854-2 or something like that. And I was lucky to get the two, honestly. 

In the other game...and I'm not exactly sure how this can happen...the Giants went into the MNF game leading the Pirates 124-123, had no players going while Jack had a Dolphins receiver, and the Giants emerged on the other side with a 124-123 win. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But let us not look back in anger. Let us look forward to the title game, shall we? The matchup should be a good one. I always like to look at the postseason history of the two teams involved. Not that it means shit for this game but it involves numbers and I like numbers, and (more importantly) it is a way to fill up this space with something other than bitter bitchin'.

This is the 15th postseason for the Sticks. They are 14-11 in 25 games through this past week. It is their fourth Hughes Bowl and they have won all three of their previous attempts. Only one other team with more than one appearance in The Big One (the S'Rats/Legends/Settlers at 2-0) have never experienced a loss. 

The Giants win in the Semis puts them at 19-16 in 20 postseason appearances. They are playing in their ninth Hughes Bowl and are looking to jump to five wins which would give them a tie for second in the all-time list behind the Nationals (6 wins). 

The last Hughes Bowl for the Sticks was a 2017 win over the James Andrews-led Flyers. This is the third straight HB game for the Giants and they have won the last two.

I was a bit surprised when I looked into previous Giants-Sticks postseason matchups. There have only been three of them and none before 2004. And all three came in the semifinals:

2004-Giants def. Sticks in Semis 78-63

2006-Sticks def. Giants in Semis on a tiebreak after an 84-all score. The Giants had been the #1 seed.

2010-Giants def. Sticks in Semis 113-81. The Sticks had been the #1 seed.

Should be a good one. Good luck to Rick and Keith. 

And I can't close without a shoutout to Jack who had a terrific run in 2021 and came oh-so-close to making the Hughes Bowl. Helluva turnaround from a 2-11 2020 season to now.

Who Dat?

Aaaaand into the Semis we go! 

Pirates-Giants...The upstart Pirates advanced to the next round with a mild upset of the Legends who went from scoring 165 points in the season finale to 81 this week when it mattered most. Jack will now have the tall task of facing off against the #1 seeded Giants. But don't count the 'kid' out. His crew has been pretty consistent the last month or so and if this season has taught us anything it's that you need to expect chaos when it comes to the NFL. BTW...this is Jack's second playoff run and first semi-final game, he lost in the wildcard game in 2019. 

The Giants remain the #1 seed for a reason and the defending champs have been doubly blessed by not having multiple injury losses over the season. 

Sticks-Flyers... Two old heads will bump in this one. Both teams are reeling from injuries over the last few weeks which makes this one tough to forecast. If the Flyers, who have lost most of their top runningbacks, can get any of them back this week it might make the difference. The Sticks lost two Tampa Bay stalwarts this week and their ability to cover for those will be the key to their outcome. 

Things... COVID has certainly taken its toll over the last week or two in fantasy football. I came close to awarding an emergency claim to the Bombers on Monday. But the close-to-gametime Adam Thielen injury announcement, when I reconstructed the timeline, didn't fall under our guidelines. Bobby made a game of it anyway. Having made the ruling that he wasn't eligible to pick up a player (and Bobby was fine with my explanation) I was kind of relieved that no Vikes player  Bobby might have chosen would have made a difference in the outcome. I always dread making those kinds of decisions and then having the outcome hinge on it.

On a semi-related note..this is the second week in a row that an NFL team has won with under 100 yards passing. Is this a new NFL thing? In the copycat world of pro football can we expect other teams to try going this route? Or is it that Kirk Cousins just blows? 

Enjoy the games this week. Hope everyone has a great holiday season, and let's pray we get through our year without NFL cancellations and more schedule shenanigans. 

Fun Fact... (and I'm not sure how to interpret this)...only two teams have NOT appeared in the playoffs in the past two seasons. One is the Strawmenn. Mike was in the 2019 Hughes Bowl (and got squeezed out last year on a tiebreak) so it's not really a playoff 'dought', The other team is the Rbacks who haven't made it since 2012. Everyone else earned a berth in 2020 or 2021 or both. 

Wildcard Preview Y Mas

Lots of stuff spinning thru the Hughes League's orbit this week. Wildcard games, some special circumstance rules, and a quick look at some of the weirdness that was 2021.

Wildcard Preview

Young Guns faceoff...James and Jack are the only two owners in the playoffs without a Hughes League crown. Sadly, one of them will have to wait for another day after this weekend.  The Legends were tied for second in the league in scoring and had 9 wins, the third-most in the league. They are coming off a huge game that saw them blessed with six players scoring over twenty points to go with a double-digit kicker. Had Terry McLaurin not been KO'd early with a zero and actually scored his average the Legends would have been over 175 in the season-ender. 

The Pirates were fifth in scoring, well back of the Big Four', but much of that was due to a dry spell in the middle of the season that saw them score 75 or less in three of four weeks. Other than that patch the club was solid. 

I'm out of the prediction business but you have to figure that the Legends are the favorites to move on to the semi-finals in this battle of second-gen Hughes guys. But James has to be aware that a monster week doesn't guarantee success the next time out. 

The other game has two old hands at the fantasy playoff business. Bobby has to feel pretty blessed to have been able to navigate to eight wins and a playoff bid while commanding the 8th highest-scoring team. And it wasn't like nobody scored against him. His Points Against total was surpassed by only three other teams. I'm telling you now that if you check his backyard you'll find evidence of some sort of animal sacrifice. He'll need more of that luck this weekend when he faces Keith's division champion Sticks. Their 110.0 PPG was tied for second in the league with the Legends and they only dipped below 90 points once.

So this week you have the classic battle of the two principal fantasy factors, strength vs good fortune. Should be a good one. BTW...the last time the Bombers made the playoffs was 2017. They were the Lombardi champ and played the Sticks in the semifinals. The Sticks prevailed 106-93 and went on to defeat James' Flyers in the Hughes Bowl.  

Yo. Playoff guys...don't forget to pick your Wildcard player. There is a dropdown box at the bottom of the submission page. In the enhanced version of the page, it's not labeled as being the tiebreak guy which is something I'm trying to get fixed. Meanwhile, I've dropped back and punted by going to the default style i.e. plain vanilla lineup page. If I get it fixed I'll switch back to the fancy-schmancy view. 

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You probably saw the email that was sent earlier concerning some changes to the waiver situation in the '21 Playoffs.  I saw multiple lists of players from sports ranging from the Premier League (Go Man U!) to the NHL postponing games and several NFL teams listing multiple positive COVID tests early in the week. After some thought and discussions among a few playoff owners, I came up with a plan that may help in case the NFL's cases really affect upcoming games. Nothing radical, just a one roster spot bump, a small waiver supplement for teams with upcoming games, lowering the waiver cost to stretch tight budgets, and a Sunday morning waiver window similar to the old 'emergency claim rule that you should remember if you were around in the 'lineups-by-telephone' days.

I was also concerned that we'd be more likely to run short of players because the playoffs require a tiebreaker of one non-starter. Makes those thin rosters even thinner. Hopefully, we are overreacting to the situation but I really don't want a crucial game outcome to be determined by COVID issues if I can help it. If I have to further revise things I'll do so. 

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Just odd shit...the Strawmenn went 3-10-1 while scoring the sixth-highest number of points. How is that even possible?....the Bombers, OTOH, went 8-6 while sitting at #8 in the points scored column. You tell me...

Just for grins here's the list of each team's most expensive acquisition for 2021...

• Legends-Hunter Renfroe $51
• Heroes-Elijah Mitchell $130
• Flyers-KJ Hamler (who?) $40
• Bombers-Randall Cobb $39
• Strawmenn-Rondell Moore $23
• Sticks-Boston Scott $69
• Pirates-Adrian Peterson $210 (that's just over $23 per point contributed)
• Blizzard-Big Ben $92 (Mike's a 'Go Big Or Go Home guy, he had five guys cost over $40 each)
• Holes-Kadarius Toney $90
• Giants-JK Osborn $75
• Ridgebacks-Cordarrelle Patterson $22 (about a buck a letter!)
• Nationals-D'Ernest Johnson $120

Random sh*t told randomly

It's On!

Well, the 2021 playoffs are set. It was an ::ahem:: interesting night watching the Rams and Cardinals. Setting aside the horrendous uniforms that were worn there were a lot of moving parts in terms of our bracket. My main point of interest was seeing if the Pirates could move ahead of the Nationals in scoring for the season and thus knock Dan out of the 'points scored Wildcard slot' and further thus allow my suddenly sad team to get a much needed bye. Until yesterday afternoon I had not considered the fact that the Strawmenn, of all teams, had a shot at sneaking into that points slot. 

That complicated things to the point I pulled out a dry erase board to keep a tally of who was sitting where in the points ranking as the game evolved. It reminded me of a Monday Night game many years ago that featured the Jets versus someone I can't remember, maybe the Dolphins. What I do remember is that I was in a tight late season matchup with Hogan and we each had a Jets receiver. I had Lam Jones and the Heroes had Wesley Walker (it might be the other way around, I dunno). Anyway, I spent the entire evening yelling at Ken O'Brien to "Don't look at HIM, you bum! Look left!!!" and so on and so on. Fantasy football at it's finest.

Last night wasn't quite that intense, mostly because I don't care as much as I did back then. LOL  And I was only trying to avoid a first round game, not trying to make the playoffs. But it was still entertaining. 

When the dust settled six teams made the playoffs including the standard three wildcards. (I'll have more to say about the possible 7-team playoffs in a bit.) Should be an interesting weekend. The Sticks drew the short straw (no pun intended) and are the division champ without a bye. They will face the rather magical Bombers who somehow emerged with a berth (and 8 wins) while finishing eighth in scoring. In the other game the Legends square off against the Pirates in a battle of strong if somewhat inconsistent teams. The Flyers and Giants wait on the sidelines and try to heal up.

Playoff thoughts and stuff I learned (and stuff I screwed up)

When I added the possible seventh playoff spot thing I intended to have a stiputaion that would set a minimum number of wins (six) to go along with the points requirement. I mentioned that in the first draft of the June edition of the Hughes News when I outlined the new season stuff. Of course, in a move that is so 'me', I failed to put it in the 'official' rules. As a result we could have easily had a three-win Strawmenn club as a five seed. That would have been, well, interesting. And (no offense, Mike) would have annoyed the hell out of me since I would have missed a bye (because of a three win team) and likely gotten a first round boot with a lineup featuring Cam Newton and Dontrell Hilliard. LOL!

I doubt I'll carry the possible seventh slot over to next year's simplified league (if there is a next year, I'm 50/50 on the whole thing) but we'll have to see. 

Another quick reminder/explaination... The wildcard teams qualify on record and are then seeded on points. I enter the teams with their seed and the bracket is created automatically based on one assumption...that the first round will go according to seed. In other words,  the system places the 3v6 matchup on the same side as the #2 seed and the 4v5 matchup on the side with the #1 seed. That way, if the higher seeds prevail in the first round, the #1 seed plays the lowest remaining seed. It doesn't always work out that way because there are first round upsets. And we all know through four decades of  experience that the seeds don't always reflect team strength. Sometimes one, two, or even all three wildcards are stronger than one or more division winners. 

But this isn't the NCAA where a bunch of old dudes hold a team beauty contest and finagle tournament seeding. We have a set of guidelines for seeding and they are followed. Once upon a time I intervened in the process after the wildcard games and re-seeded to ensure that #1 team played vs the lowest remaining club but a few seasons back I forgot to do that (nobody noticed!) and I decided that letting the brackets play out as created is for the best going forward. 

And finally...I've turned off eliminated teams' ability to make any roster moves and will continue to do that each week thru the playoffs. There is only one waiver period each week and it's the blind bid session that processes on Wednesday evening. 

Good luck to everyone still playing, especially me. I'm gonna need it!