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!
For the first time since 2008, two of the 'Original Nine' franchises will be meeting in the Hughes Bowl. The Flyers and Nats took different paths and had different Semifinal weekend rides but both ended up in their 12th title contest.
For much of Sunday, the Nats appeared to be hopelessly behind the Pirates as Jack seemed to be on his way to besting his Dad and bound for his first title shot. But a funny thing happened...the Nats muscled up with big games from a crew of second-window players. They caught the Pirates at about 76 points, seemed to pause and catch their breath, and then laid down the hammer and ran away to a 50ish-point lead. Jack's Sunday and Monday Night players had no hope of making up the deficit. The Nats won 123.94-94.20 once the once-sided Packers-Saints game wrapped on Monday night.
The Flyers gained a measure of revenge over the Bombers, their Lombardi Division rivals, with a 'don't look back' 129.92 to 60.06 win. Saturday's NFL contests went a long way in determining this one. Bobby had three starters in the early Chiefs-Texans game and when they came away with just a combined 20 points the Flyers saw the door open wide. In the late Saturday game, Derrick Henry almost matched those three Bombers. The Flyers piled up points early Sunday to pull away and used Baker Mayfield's late-game desperation efforts on Sunday Night to score enough to double-up the by-then eliminated Bombers.
There were moments this past season when the Nats and Flyers looked unstoppable. The Nats ended up third in the league in points behind the Bombers and Flyers. They were the league's high-scoring team in Weeks 1 & 2 and had the second-highest 2024 week total in Week 11.
The Flyers led the league in PPG five times this year and had the highest one-week total for the year in Week 3. They were 0.24 points behind the Bombers for the yearly scoring race.
But in fantasy football all that history means little. Hell, the Bombers scored 141.22 and 145.98 in Weeks 13 and 14. Bobby had the bye week off and came back with a 60-point game. Who saw that coming? Nobody. I had two banners prepped for this blog post as seen at the top. One had the Nats vs the Bombers. The other had the Pirates vs the Bombers. Don't count on anything. Don't try to pick the winner of the HB. 45 years of this has to have taught us that, right?
Let's crunch some numbers!
The fine print: It's always been hard for me to parse ownership/management/advisor of franchises in the first couple of decades of the league. For example, Steve had Dan and David as 'partners' with the Nats at various points back then. Sam and Bobby were co-owners of the Bombers after Bobby ran his own team which was known as the Banditos. Then Bobby took the 'Bombers' name when Sam left. Rick was picking lineups for the Flyers at some point in 1980. For that reason, I keep these things simple by just tracking 'franchise' numbers. Keep that in mind with historical achievements.
Fun Facts...Eight of the first eleven Hughes Bowls featured either the Flyers, the Nationals, or both...the Flyers are trying to be the fourth wildcard to win the title in the last five years... they were this year's #4 seed and what was the last #4 club to win it all? Last season's Strawmenn. The Nats earned the #2 seed this year. The 2019 Giants were the last #2 seed to win the Hughes Bowl.
Despite being original members of this league, the two clubs have met only six times in the EHFL Postseason. And the Nats have won four of those meetings:
This chart shows the Postseason records of the two franchises, updated through this past weekend. Note the 1993 "HebePokes". Those were the Nats as they were known under the direction of David as Stevie's GM in his pre-Rbacks days.
Here's a look at all the Hughes Bowl results involving the Nats and Flyers.
Murray Christmas from all of us here at League Headquarters!
I've been saving this. If you don't know Eva Cassidy please watch this Nightline segment from 2001. If you have a soul at all her music will change your life. Or skip to one of the first three videos. You're welcome.
We've made it to Week 16 and we are down to four teams contending for this season's Hughes Bowl. This past weekend was a study in contrast. The Pirates avenged the loss to the Blizzard that closed out their season and had bumped them to a #6 seed. They jumped out to a huge Sunday lead and were spared having to watch the ugly Monday Night Football games.
Their 152+ points were nearly double their Week 14 output and was a high-scoring mark for them in 2024. And they managed that with only a handful of points from their TE. Meanwhile, Paz has to head for the offseason knowing he'd have rolled past either of the other two teams that played this weekend. How many times have I said it? Fantasy football can be a bitch.
Jack's win sets up a fun weekend as he takes the old man's #1-seeded Nationals. Family feuds are an interesting aspect of the Hughes League. I always enjoyed it when Brooks and James had teams in the Lombardi. Those matchups I dubbed the Bunkbed Brawl. I'm on a heavy dose of meds so I'm struggling to come up with a clever fish/seafaring/father-son name for this matchup so I'll just go with the Scofield Scuffle.
The Nats were the third-highest-scoring team over the season's last five weeks while the Pirates were well down that list but none of that matters now that both teams have their full rosters available. Here are a few tidbits I've found with a quick look at the history of this matchup...
The Nats and Pirates have never met in the postseason previously.
The Nats beat the Pirates in Week 6 100.10 to 88.00.
Both clubs were 4-2 and had at least a piece of their division lead after that game.
Jack is 0-2 in Semifinal games having lost to the Giants in 2021 and the Strawmenn last year.
In both those cases, their opponent went on to win the Hughes Bowl.
The Nats are 10-8 in Semifinal games in their long history under Dan and Stevie.
Their last Semi game was in 2020 (that was also their last playoff season).
They beat Lincoln in that one before losing to the Giants in the Hughes Bowl.
This game will tie them with the Heroes for the most Semifinal appearances (19).
The other Wildcard game couldn't have been more different than the Pirates-Bliz affair. I checked the app on my phone late-ish in the second game window on Sunday and the score was something like 36-28 in favor of the Holes. Neither they nor my Flyers had done shit in hours (or so it seemed) and I was like 'This is the worst playoff game in history!' It got a little better Sunday night... but not much.
Below is an actual AI simulation of the Holes and Flyers game.
That led to Monday. <switching to owner mode> The Holes had a lead of about 7 or so and had their rookie Raider TE going. I had the Vikes' TE and kicker. I figured my kicker should erase the gap and it would be a TE fight. Turns out my making the move for the Minnesota kicker was one of the few smart things I did this season. I had contemplated activating the Chiefs guy and going with him. He only got three so I was lucky. I got to about 5 points ahead and switched to the Falcons and Raiders so I could watch the Vegas TE. I feel like the NFL owes me reparations for sitting through that truly awful display of football they spewed in that game. Raiders were down 12 but the Falcons were just fucking around and let them score. About then the Vikings kicker added another field goal so, now up by about 9, I got out my calculator to figure out how long of a TD reception the Raiders' TE needed to beat me by 0.24 points and kill what little soul I have left.
Meanwhile, the Falcons couldn't get a first to run out the clock (FFS, Kirk Cousins! Stop being shite!) so they punted. The Raiders took some idiotic penalties (thanks!), went backward, then forward, backward, forward, and finally chunked two shitty Hail Marys to put a merciful end to that garbage. </owner mode>
And that led to this Lombardi rerun:
These are two old hands ready to duke it out with a Hughes Bowl trip as the reward. A couple of notes:
They split the two regular-season games.
Flyers won 119+ to 60+ in Week 5
The Bombers pummelled the Flyers in the Week 12 rematch as these were clubs headed in different directions.
The Flyers are 8-7 in Semifinal games, the Bombers are 7-6
These two last met in a playoff game in 1999 when the Bombers downed the Flyers in the Wildcard round.
The Flyers' last Semifinal game was a loss to the Sticks in 2021 (their last playoff appearance)
The Bombers' last Semifinal game came in 2022 when they beat the Heroes before dropping the HB to the Bliz.
The way the season finished with the Bombers winning the division by less than a quarter of a point probably made this matchup inevitable.
I usually make notes on possible milestones to be aware of when they happen but I let Hogan's 300th win get past me. The Heroes are the second team to reach 300 regular season wins. When you add in playoff wins, the total is 316! Congrats are certainly in order.
And four(!) teams could reach that milestone in 2025... the Nats (294 wins thru 2024), Strawmenn (292), Holes (291), and Giants (289).
Random League Tidbits... this is the second consecutive season that the defending Hughes Bowl champ has missed the playoffs. The Blizzard, our '22 champs, went 7-7 in 2023. Last year's title holder, the Strawmenn, didn't threaten this year... over the past three seasons, since we did away with keepers and gimmicky drafts, the team drafting in the #12 slot has gone 18-24 and none of the three has made the playoffs. Don't jump to any conclusions because the team drafting first has gone 16-26 and none of them made the playoffs either... across the four remaining clubs, we have the Nats gunning for their 7th EHFL title, the Flyers trying for their 6th, the Bombers hoping for their 5th and the Pirates looking to break through and win one for themselves and the younger generation of owners.
I kind of hope that happens to be honest. Sure, I want to win, but it would be cool to put a new name on the Champs plaque... I was catching up on lineup research and noticed that for the first time in the two seasons we've had these flexible lineups there was a 1-2-3 configuration. The Giants, hamstrung by injuries and byes, started three TEs in Week 14. It didn't go well.
A bit of Mitch Hedberg. RIP, genius.
Stuff I've been saving for a rainy day. Hit 'em all!
Ok, maybe skip this one. 😆
Music Trivia...Mickey Thomas did the lead vocal, not Elvin Bishop.
Oh, So Close...The Fantasy Football gods can be cruel. Alternate view...Fantasy Karma can be a Bitch. Either way, I end up with the same outcome: The Flyers miss the division title by 0.24, a quarter of a point and land the #4 seed instead of a Bye. A quarter of a point. That's not even one catch over the course of the season. Oh, well.
It was a rather entertaining weekend despite all six playoff teams having been determined. In the Lombardi the Bombers put up 146 points but had to sweat out: 1) the Legends crawling back into the game on Monday night and falling just five points shy of a major upset, and 2) the Flyers almost reclaiming in the closing moments on Monday night the total points lead they had held almost the whole season. Meanwhile, I was at a concert and missed almost all the 'fun'.
The Blizzard claimed the Kuhlmann crown by beating the Pirates to split their two matchups and scored more than enough points to pass the Pirates for first place.
The Nationals took care of business and waltzed past the Holes for the top spot in the Barenholtz and were rewarded with a Bye as the #2 seed.
This will be the third 2024 meeting of these two Kuhlmann Division rivals. They split those two division games. As mentioned above the Bliz closed the season beating Jack's crew. They are coming off their best scoring week while Portland finished the year with their second-worst. But Week 14 byes played a part in every game so we start fresh with Week 15.
Jack is 1-1 in Wildcard games. Mike is 5-5. The two clubs have never met in the playoffs before this upcoming game.
The Holes downed the Flyers in Week 11 which was just about the time Baltimore was starting its descent into mediocrity. Jim is 5-5 in wildcards while the Flyers' 1-8 mark should tell you all you need to know about why I was anxious to get that &%(*@#ing bye.
The last time the Holes and Flyers met in the playoffs was the 2018 Hughes Bowl. James was at the Flyers' helm that season while I was only playing commish. That matchup was won by the Holes.
This is the fifth playoff matchup of these two teams in our history. Here are all the previous results:
A combination of events led to the Rbacks not having a Week 14 lineup in the system. I was doing family things this past Sunday and didn't look at the site other than to check my score on the app. I noticed the issue pretty late on Sunday night after the SNF game was over. Luckily the game involved (Rbacks-Giants) had no playoff implications. That's pretty unusual for a Week 14 game, usually every game means something to some extent.
Had the game 'meant' something I'd have had a crisis to deal with. As it is I only had to deal with how to resolve the game itself. Two things are given, as far as I'm concerned:
1) Zero scores mess with my stats/records and nobody loves their league stats more than me. Therefore I won't let a zero score stand. This leads us to 'Given' #2:
2) No team without a lineup should ever win a game.
With that in mind I did the following... set a lineup for the Rbacks. The team had pretty narrow guardrails with no active TE and several players hurt or on byes. My goal was to set a lineup that would score less than the Giants without using bye/injured players. With the Giants scoring under 60 points that goal was out the window. So today I went back and started the Rbacks' most logical lineup of active players (w/o a TE) and let that total stand. But I went into the system and changed the two reams' result, i.e. gave the Giants a win and the Rbacks a loss overriding to actual scores.
I had talked to a few owners not directly involved and they had no issues with the plan. I also talked to Rick and he was more than willing to take the loss without any adjustment but that wouldn't fly (see Given #2 above).
Hey, as Padilla reminded me, life gets in the way of Fantasy sometimes (as it certainly should). And when it does I can always step in and fix things. It's why you guys pay me to do this. But I will also try to keep things from popping up that lead to me making arbitrary decisions. Next season I may, at least later in the year, turn on the Thursday morning lineup option. It's just a safety net that would keep stuff like this from happening.
Finally...
I have decided that the consolation bracket wasn't such a great idea. I'll rethink it and maybe restructure it and if I like it I'll have it in place for next year, not as a last-minute gimmick announced without much thought.
I've decided that due to how the standings have played out this year I'd set up a consolation playoff bracket. The six teams not playing for the Hughes Bowl will play for a to-be-determined waiver cash prize(s). I'll seed the bracket the same way as the HB bracket. The difference is that the Consolation Bracket teams will NOT have waivers. You'll go with what you have on your roster as of the end of the season.
Two points: 1) The HB bracket will have a $$$ prize that mirrors the Consolation Bracket and 2) waivers for the non-HB hopefuls end Saturday so if you are in that group make plans for the postseason.
Last thing...I will set the Consolation Bracket teams to have their lineups filled automatically on Thursday mornings. I figure some of you may not want to be active in this. But you can override the automatic lineups or, if you wish, I can turn that feature off for you and you can fill lineups as normal.
EDIT..I'm thinking $30 waiver cash for the Hughes Bowl win, and $20 for the Conso Bowl winner. Do we give something to the runners-up? Half the winners share? Nada? I'm all ears.
After I posted the Hughes News late Monday night (scroll down to read it first) I stayed up even later digging through past seasons. As best I can tell we have never had, at least in the three-division era going back to the 80s, a season where the following were true:
All divisions were still up for grabs with a week still to play
All playoff teams were known with a week still to play
It would take far more research than I'm willing to do but I'm pretty sure the 2024 season is unique in that regard. Having two qualifiers from each division isn't unusual (it's happened the past two seasons) but it satisfies my sense of...ummm... symmetry.
BTW...does anyone have an opinion on the proper protocol? Is it...
WildCard
Wildcard
Wild Card
wild card
wildcard
😐 I've used all five (sometimes in the same newsletter)! Vote by number in the comments. Thanks!
Other quick observations:
The Nats have made the playoffs after being on the outside looking in for the past three seasons. The Flyers' drought is snapped after two seasons. The other four clubs made the playoffs in 2022, 2023, or both (the Bombers)... a WildCard team has won three of the last four Hughes titles so the 'advantage' of getting a bye has not held true recently... Portland is the only team with a chance to capture back-to-back division crowns. Neither the Legends nor Strawmenn made the cut... you need to go back to 1994 to find a season where the league's 'best' record was achieved by a team with less than nine wins. The Heroes and Bullies (Rbacks) both went 8-4-1 that season. That streak remains intact... Since tied games are very, very rare in this era of decimal scoring we will have at least one double-digit win club for the fourth straight year.
Research Corner:
I'm not sure what to make of the Lineup Configuration research but I started it and I feel like I need to continue it. Anyway, here's the latest.
Reminders:
Playoff teams receive $10 in waiver funds each week during the postseason... the waiver schedule changes in the postseason, check the calendar... the trade deadline is Saturday. I go back and forth on moving the deadline back to where it used to be i.e. earlier in the season. But we've never had a trade that even hinted at collusion so I'm not going to concern myself with the deadline at this point.
Gary Allan Video Dump.
I've been saving this one for quite a while, it's a great farewell song. If you ever see it here again, you'll know. 😜
Man, how annoying is that GIF? LOL, But it does a good job pointing out that we are at Week 14 of our 45th season. And there are still spots to be filled.
That was a wild and fun Monday Night game. In the Hughes we had two come-from-behind wins to cement shots at division titles (although neither the Holes nor the Bombers had all that far to come back from going into the game). For a bit there it seemed like Nick Chubb had gone on break and I'm guessing he had Jimmy sweating. The game was so entertaining I was almost able to block out Troy Aikman. Almost. That fucker NEVER shuts up. Jeez.
Oh, before I forget...
The Trade Deadline is this Saturday, December 7 at 5 p.m. Central time.
I'm working on the lineup submission form/page. Let me know if you have any issues with it.
If you get a message or warning when you click on one of the EHFL Links pages you can ignore it. The site hosting those pages is not harmful.
Okay, back to the things at stake this weekend. First of all, we know the six playoff teams. The Bombers, Flyers, Pirates, Blizzard, Nationals, and Holes are in. Period. No other team can get a Wild Card much less a division title. Things have played out so that each division will have a Wild Card qualifier. Let's look at each division and see what's possible.
Lombardi: The Bombers and Flyers are both 9-4 and split their two meetings. If both win or both lose the division goes to the team with the highest-scoring season. The Flyers hold a 29.14 point lead currently.
Kuhlmann:Portland is 8-5, the Bliz are 7-6. Portland won the Week One matchup and take the division with a win this weekend. A Blizzard win sends this division to the points-scored tiebreak. Portland leads in points scored by 33.74 through 13 weeks.
Barenholtz:The Nationals and Holes are 9-4. They meet this week with the winner taking the division.
Note that the point margins shown above are unofficial as I tabulated them as the final gun went off on Monday night. Sometimes that get tweaked overnight.
Tiebreak reminders... In all cases head-to-head is the first tiebreak with points scored in all games (PPG) the second tiebreak. I haven't given any thought to how the seeds will fall given the weekend possibilities but there isn't any way for the Blizzard to get a bye (the #1 or #2 seed). They'd be #3 as Kuhlmann champs and #6 as Kuhlmann runner-ups since the other wildcards would have nine wins minimum.
Here's a quick and dirty list of the other teams' head-to-head wins and losses for determining seeds:
Flyers beat Portland, lost to Nats and Holes
Bombers beat Nats, lost to Pirates and Holes
Pirates beat Bombers, lost to Nats, Holes and Flyers
Holes beat Bombers, Flyers and Pirates
Nats beat Pirates and Flyers, lost to Bombers
That's all I have for the moment. I might post something later in the week.
Acoustic Foreigner (out of leftfield I know)
Chris Stapleton (This and the one at the bottom are great Willie Nelson covers)
Merle
Chris Stapleton and his wife and the great Dwight Yoakam
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