Hughes Bowl 44 Preview

 

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:

• 1982 Hughes Bowl  Nats 34 Flyers 26
• 1986 Semifinals  Nats 44 Flyers 25
• 1990 Hughes Bowl  Flyers 17 Nationals 4 (not a typo...lowest scoring HB ever)
• 1994 Wildcard  Nats 30 Flyers 23
• 2000 Semifinals  Nats 33 Flyers 19
• 2010 Semifinals  Flyers 89 Nats 88

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. 

Mick Fleetwood on Eva C.

RIP Eva Cassidy