Putting A Bow On It

 

EDIT...This post was mostly written prior to the events in Cincinnati that resulted in a truncated Hughes Bowl. I have since made a donation to Demar Hamlin's Chasing M's Foundation in the name of the Ed Hughes Football League. And now for the wrapup....

I decided during the last off-season that we would simplify things. And for the most part, that goal was accomplished. I'm not totally satisfied with the way things went this year but moving forward I believe I can make some tweaks that will move the league closer to being the 'hands-off' experience I'm looking for.

First Things First

I hope everyone understands that the Hughes League is like my cell contract... I've had it long past the minimum required amount of time and it's now considered month-to-month. In the league's case, I'm calling it 'year-to-year'. I'm going to see how I feel about continuing once things are complete. 

Changes, the certain kind:

1) We will go to a dedicated tight-end lineup spot for 2023. That's all I know for sure now. How I implement that is something I'm still mulling over. I do know that we won't expand the lineup past 8 players. That leaves questions that I will address below.

2) I will decide on a Wild Card qualification setup and stick to it. The arbitrary decision I made that took away the Rbacks' bye turned out to be a disaster, at least in my mind. Not that I regret allowing the seventh team...the Bliz absolutely belonged in the playoffs as they proved with a Hughes Bowl berth...but if you check how David's regular players (probable starters) performed in the Semi Final week you'd see he would have landed in the title game for sure. The bottom line is that I boxed myself into a corner and the way I chose to get out caused me to step on some toes. Again it's a credit to Dave for the gracious way he handled it.

While I will likely go with all Wildcards being based on record I might make a provision for a seventh WC but with certain, clearly defined parameters... at least a .500 record and scoring more points than all other already qualified WCs. 

3) Added Jan 17...I'm going to add a rule or guideline that addresses the situation that occurred this year in our title week. I think I made the best decision for us in the issue of a canceled game but it could have been dicey had the Hughes Bowl been a close game and/or my team had been involved. Hopefully, we never see that happen again but having a rule in place would make me feel better.

4) Added Jan 20... I am going to adjust the price structure to include the cost of the League trophy and other swag that goes to the champion. I can't expect an owner to pay for that stuff as a favor to me (Thanks again, Keith). I will decide on the league's status in the next few weeks and if we come back to MFL I will renew before the price rises. Waiting like I did last year cost at least $30 over the early bird price. Having said that I will ask for league fees without nagging with owners' abilities to access the league switched on when they pay. 2022 was the first season in memory in which every team actually paid the league fee. If we go to a free site I will only bill for the trophy costs.

Changes, the possible kind:

1) The tight-end addition will have an effect on how we select a lineup. There are a couple of options including allowing multiple players at one of the flex positions (RB, REC, TE) or something a bit more balanced. I'm looking at how other leagues are set up and will find the best option. (This may be influenced by the next item.) I've played around with possibilities and there are many, including these and some options based on each:

Everyone's input on the lineup configuration is welcome!

2) I've considered moving on from Myfantasyleague in recent years. I'm considering it more seriously now. I have always valued the site's flexibility and how the appearance can be customized. But I'm not sure I need that anymore, especially since we are moving towards a more standard setup. Multiple sites, ESPN,  NFL.com, Yahoo, CBS (and many others) offer free leagues. We could move to one of them and I could quit bugging folks for the $70 to $100 that MFL costs depending on the renewal time. 

An added benefit of moving somewhere else would be that we could just select a standard package and let the site sort out standings tiebreaks, playoff qualifiers, and so on. It's very tempting. The downside is I would miss some of the perks of MFL like linking to historic stats, and the ability to add pages like Champions News, the Ed Hughes Memorial page, and on and on. OTOH I had such a struggle with all that stuff earlier this year I might be better off just letting it go or finding some alternative way to allow access to  them

For a few years, I've been thinking about a couple of scoring tweaks. But with the other changes we've been through I had put it on the back burner. So...

3a) You may have noticed that our top scorers (and it goes pretty far down the list and back several years) are quarterbacks. I'd like to get to a more balanced system. The new 'industry standard' for QB yardage scoring is one point for every 25 yards as opposed to what we use, a point per 20 yards. It wouldn't be an earth-shattering change but it might move us closer to having balanced positions. For example.. a 300-yard game currently is worth 15 points. At one point per 25 yards, a 300-point effort would yield 12 points. Not anything game-changing but it would reign in a few of the outliers among the QBs and bring their scoring closer to other positions. A different and much more radical variation is explored next...

3b) Consider this: Your RB gains 69 yards. Good for six points. Your opponent's RB gets 70. That'll net him seven points. Should one yard (or lack thereof) mean a full point difference? I dunno, you tell me. If we went to fractional scoring (0.1 per yard for RB/WR/TE) the guy with 69 yards would gain 6.9 points for his team, and the player with 70 picks up 7 points. That can make a significant difference spread over six starting lineup spots. It's definitely something I'm considering. I've never liked fractional final scores but now that we have half-point PPR it hardly matters, the mold has been broken.

To take this further, to include passing yards, we could go to .04 per passing yard. I'm leaning toward changing both rushing/receiving yards and passing yards to fractional scoring...or keeping everything in 10/20 (or 25) yards per point scoring. I don't think doing one and not the other makes sense. Scores will end up looking like 123.56 to 112.97 but I long ago gave up on making final scores look like real football.

EDIT (Added Jan 7)

I had time so I played around with some numbers. The chart below shows variations in scoring based on the above paragraphs. I used a close game, this season's Week 15 WC game between the Bliz and Rbacks. (You can click the graph to enlarge it, btw) The first column is the game's actual scoring. The second column (green) is how the scores would be if we gave the quarterbacks 1 point per 25 yards as I'm considering for next year. The next two columns are how the game would have played out in fractional scoring for all players. In both the blue and red columns we award 0.1 points per rushing and receiving yard. In the blue column, the QBs get .04 points per yard, essentially equivalent to a point per 25. In the red column, they get .05 per yard which corresponds to a point per 20 yards as is currently the case in the Hughes.

None of the results change the winning team. But they do affect the margin of victory. Interesting stuff, at least to me.

4) I may go in and revise (and streamline) the tiebreaks. I've messed with them a few times in recent years but I still find them somewhat confusing, probably because they are the NFL's tiebreaks and some parts don't apply to us. I want simple, straightforward rules.

5) This blog may go away. I don't feel like the return is worth the effort, kind of how I felt about my Texans seats. 😕 I can communicate just as well with the messages on the front page of the site (if we remain with MFL) or through emails. 

6) Added Jan 20... I've played around some with the possibility of carrying over unused waiver cash from one year to the next. I've been in a couple of leagues where this was the norm and it adds a little spice to the waiver situation. It's also possible to accomplish with the flip of one option switch in the league set-up so it's not something I would have to track. Doing that would be a deal-killer for sure.

UPDATE-Jan 6

I will be contacting the Houston-based owners real soon about a meet-up to present Paz with his trophy and in general to shoot the breeze. The day before the Super Bowl, Saturday, February 11th is a possibility (or sooner?). now confirmed. I'm looking at possible spots. I always like to find somewhere that can accommodate us either inside or outside depending on the weather. Any ideas?

That's it for now. I'm almost done with the commemorative Hughes Bowl Championship Edition. I will post it on the site under the Champs News tab when it's ready to upload. There is an early version there now. I may have additional announcements as we head towards spring/summer and I decide on league issues. As always I do listen to your thoughts on this stuff. Feel free to drop me an email, etc.

Okay, I can't explain this guy but he's got a great voice.

Happy New Year from my little angel!

Hughes Bowl Wrap and Myriad Thoughts

 

First things first...Congrats to Paz on winning his fourth Hughes League title. He's a believer in spreading out the fun as his previous trophy seasons were in 1985, 1998, and 2014. He becomes the sixth owner with at least four championships and is the first #7 seed to bring home a title. (His being the only #7 seed we've ever had in history doesn't detract from that honor, I think).

I also want to give a shoutout to Bobby for not only a successful season but also the gracious way he handled the very unusual way this week went down. 

On we go... it was an odd week, to say the least, ending a rather unusual season for us. Let me just kind of ramble on here with a focus on how we got to this spot. Monday night's awful event on the field in Cincinnati was terrible to watch. I was reminded of being in NRG Stadium in 2013 when Gary Kubiak collapsed on the sidelines as the first half was ending. Nobody knew what was happening (he'd suffered a form of stroke) when was whisked out of the building. Not the stuff you expect to see when you attend an NFL game. We can only hope Damar Hamlin is able to recover fully. Word this morning is that he's showing promising signs.

When it because clear the game wasn't going to be finished that night I reached out to Paz and Bobby and after a bit of back-and-forth it was decided (mostly by Bobby) that our game was out of reach and should be called final. 

The only thing I hadn't determined fully is the final score. I figured it wasn't right to blow off the players that were in the MNF game so I'm adding their season PPG averages... Ja'Marr Chase (16 pts) and Josh Allen (29 pts)... and declaring it a 113-81 Blizzard win. We had some other options...using their Week 18 points, waiting for the game to be concluded, and then using those actual points, but in the end, wrapping it up and moving on is best. 

I'm not totally happy with scoring it that way and I may revise things after they play Week 18 but once I order the trophy, that's it. 👌 I also plan to go back and reinstate the actual lineups. I originally switched out the MNF players to force a final score on the bracket but I later remembered I can adjust teams' final scores easily enough no matter what the lineups show. 

Lots of leagues have cash prizes hanging in the balance and I don't envy those commissioners' situations. If you are involved in one of those leagues I suggest giving your commish a break, it's an unprecedented situation with no easy solution right now.

More Stuff... We will have a trophy presentation and get-together soon, probably in early February. Details to follow... I am updating the spreadsheets with 2022 numbers and if we return to Myfantasyleague I will post them in the Links section once we have a new league site. If we go in a different direction I'll come up with an alternate plan... I'll begin putting together the annual commemorative Hughes Bowl issue of the Hughes News as soon as I settle on a final game score... this news blog will have at least one more entry for this season. I've almost completed my usual year-ender. I have some changes in mind for next season and they will be discussed at length. Please read it when it is posted.

My pixie is cute, and she knows it!

Bliz Beat Bombers For 4th Title

 

Paz' Blizzard are the winners of Hughes Bowl 42! It's their fourth title. They used a huge Sunday to pull away from the Bombers and roll to the 97-52 113-81 win.

Please see the email sent on Monday night for some clarification on my decision to end the game without Monday Nite results. Hope to see as many of you as possible when we get together for the trophy presentation. More Hughes Bowl details, trophy party info, and a look at the league going forward will be posted right here on this news blog.

Some Hughes Bowl Minutiae

Leading up to Hughes Bowl 42 featuring the Bombers and Blizzard I present some Hughes Bowl tidbits I gleaned from our record book. First up are scores from past title games played by this year's participants:

Bombers

• 1992 Bombers (as Banditos) 27 Heroes 3
• 2001 Holes 31 Bombers 25
• 2003 Bombers 47 Giants 38
• 2007 Bombers 86 Giants 81
• 2013 Bombers 114 Blizzard 57
• 2014 Blizzard 122 Bombers 98

Six games played, 4 wins, 2 losses. Qualified as Wild Card in 1992 and 2003. Qualified as Division Champs with a bye in '01 and '13. Qualified as Division Champs without a bye in '07 and '14.

Blizzard

• 1985 Blizzard 40 Attica 32
• 1991 Nats 26 Blizzard 22
• 1994 Heroes 47 Blizzard 22
• 1998 Blizzard 34 Strawmenn 22
• 2011 Holes 88 Blizzard 80
• 2013 Bombers 114 Blizzard 57
• 2014 Blizzard 122 Bombers 98
• 2016 Holes 116 Blizzard 89

Eight games played, 3 wins, 5 losses. Qualified as a Wild Card in '85* and '98. Qualified as Division Champs with a bye in '91, '94, '13, and '14. Qualified as Division Champs without a bye in '11 and '16.

*=qualified as Division Runner-up.

----------------------------------

This is the sixth postseason matchup between the Bliz and Bombers. In addition to splitting their two Hughes Bowl showdowns (2013 and 2014) they have played each other in three semifinal contests. All three games (1991, 2011, and 2016) were won by the Blizzard. They have never faced each other in the Wild Card round.

Blizzard-Bombers Postseason results with the top scorer from the winning team:

• 1991 Semifinals... Blizzard 46  Bombers 30   Jim Kelly 18 pts
• 2011 Semifinals... Blizzard 91  Bombers 76   Tom Brady 30 pts
• 2013 Hughes Bowl... Bombers 114  Blizzard 57   Eric Decker 25 pts
• 2014 Hughes Bowl... Blizzard 122  Bombers 98   CJ Anderson 27 pts
• 2016 Semifinals... Blizzard 91  Bombers 76   Matt Ryan 22 pts

Random stuff indicative of nothing... Paz joined the league in 1983 and was playing in the Hughes Bowl two seasons later (he won it)...Bobby began in 1981, played three seasons and then shared a franchise with Sam off and on over the next four years. He returned full time with his own team in 1988 and was in (and winning) the Hughes Bowl four years later (1992)... the 12 years between the Bliz' '98 and '11 Hughes Bowls is the longest title shot drought for either team. The Bombers went nine years after their first HB (1992) until their second (2001). 

This year marks Bobby's 15th postseason appearance. In 28 games (including this year) he is 18-10 and 4-2 in Hughes Bowls. His .643 winning percentage ranks first among all owners with at least ten postseason games. Paz has returned to the playoffs for the 19th time and his wins the past two weeks push him over .500 to 17-15. He is hoping to become the fifth owner to win a fourth Hughes Bowl. He is 3-5 in his 8 title games. His win this past week is his ninth semifinal victory (he is 9-5) and that ties him for second place in that category with Rick, one behind the Nats (Steve and Dan share that team's history/records).

That's all for now. Hopefully, this is a fun Hughes Bowl. 

These shows are dopey but Andreas Kümmert is incredible. 

 

And so is my little beauty!

Hughes Bowl 42 Preview

 I'm as surprised as you are. 😯

And here we go.... after a tumultuous regular season and an...ahem... interesting postseason we find ourselves at Hughes Bowl 42 to cap off our 43rd campaign. Paz' Blizzard, winners of a wildcard 'golden ticket', and Bobby's Bombers, as stealthy as the plane on their helmet, will duke it out in the first Hughes Bowl to not feature the Giants since 2018!

This is the third time these two clubs have met to decide the champion of our league. They faced off in back-to-back Hughes Bowls with the Bombers wrecking the Bliz 114-57 in 2013 and the Blizzard gaining their revenge in 2014, 122-98. I took a quick glance at our HB history and I think this will be the first time that two clubs have opposed each other three times. 

Random facts from our record book... the last (only?) time two Wild Card clubs gained the Hughes Bowl was in 2012 when the Giants took on the R'backs (more on this below)... the Blizzard last took part in fantasy football's biggest contest in 2016 when they lost to the Holes... the Bombers last visit to the big stage was the 2014 game versus the Bliz mentioned above... that 2013 win is obviously their last HB victory.

This one and the 2012 Hughes Bowls are, technically at least, the only ones to feature two Wild Card clubs. The first Hughes Bowl (1981) and the third one (1983) were played by two clubs that finished second in their divisions. In those early two division seasons, the division champs and runners-up made up the postseason field. Whether or not the 2nd place clubs should be considered 'wild cards' is up for debate I guess... 

This is the seventh Hughes Bowl for the Bombers who have won four times. The Blizzard are looking for their fourth league crown in their ninth Hughes Bowl. Based on regular season scoring (and their respective semi-final showings) the Bombers would have to be considered the favorite but I'm retired from the prediction game. I'll just wish them both good luck.

I'll have a Hughes Bowl wrap-up next week. Included in that blog post or in a separate one shortly afterward I'll have some year-ending thoughts on the league and what the future holds. I also hope to have a league owner meet-up with a trophy presentation early in the new year. Details to come.

Meanwhile...

My sweet pixie wanted NO PART of Santa!

But she had no problem enjoying her treasure trove of gifts. 

She flat out got worn out! 

Happy New Year from Ellis and me!

A little Moby with Mindy Jones......

And Here We Are

 

The Messi picture has nothing to do with our league but I am convinced he's some sort of alien being. I watch him play and I find it hard to believe he's merely human. Same way I felt about Bobby Orr and Roberto Clemente. I hope he gets to raise the World Cup for Argentina! Okay, on to Hughes things...

Before I go any further I need to give a big Ed Hughes cap tip to David. It's been awhile since he had a team like this and he fully deserved a bye in the first round. I wouldn't have blamed him for being upset with my playoff setup decision but he took it with humor and grace. This league has the best damn owners.

Playoff thoughts..... Just random things from conversations with other owners and stuff that occurs to me as the dust settles: And some of it actually pertains to the Hughes League.

Hogan mentioned how things kind of leveled off when we dropped the keepers and everyone had start from scratch. That's very true. It was pretty hard to choose a favorite after the draft. Nowadays everyone has the best intel for drafting and results come down to injuries, the fantasy schedule, lineup mistakes and luck. 

I was thinking that a five game win bump was fairly uncommon but we've seen it happen more than I had thought. In digging I noticed that the Pirates improved by 7 wins(!) from 2017 to 2018 and then had a six win bump from '19 to '20. That's a real roller coaster ride. 

Be honest.. if I'd have asked you in August to name the top fantasy quarterbacks would you have had Geno Smith at #6, Trevor Lawrence at #7 and Justin Fields at #8? I thought not. Hey, here's a prediction based on absolutely no research, just a hunch...the winner of the Holes-Bombers game wins the Hughes Bowl. Remember who told you first. 

I have nothing else for the moment. Good luck to everyone still in the hunt. Remember your tie break guy.  

Yup, It Never Ends

 

No matter how simple I try to make it, this commish thing continues to jump up and bite me. Looks like I failed to update on the rules page what I intended to change for this year. It says that the sixth playoff qualifier (the one based on points) needs a minimum of six wins. That was fine in our 13 game season days but I thought a seven win minimum would be appropriate in a 14 game season. I brain cramped when I edited this years rules and was so used to having a six win minimum that that's what I typed.

I have no intention of allowing a six-win team knock out an 8 win (or better) club from the post-season. I'll do what needs to be done to avoid that even if it means expanding the playoffs to include more teams. Doing that might require eliminating a bye (or byes) for the top seeds and if that happens it might piss someone off but we shall see. Of course if it's my team that gets bumped I'll take the fall. Whatever.

Next year we will go back to just having wildcards based on records. I've always believed that a really good team with bad scheduling luck shouldn't be punished but I'm not going to go through these shenanigans anymore. Just not worth the effort.