The Hughes News: 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.