The Hughes News: Week 16--> The Semis!

2024 Semifinals

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.