#THE 1 DROPPED INT 40 YEARS AGO??
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do n O T SEPARATE THEM!!!
#it might all just be flirting on the timeline but for the love of GOD#if we trade pq for brandin cooks i'm going to do some illegal things#i've got nothing on cooks but not for our 2nd best linebacker are you DUMB#ERIC!!!#god i hate off season rumors#and i hate ravens fans even more for wanting pq gone wHAT HAS HE DONE TO YOU#THE 1 DROPPED INT 40 YEARS AGO??#i hate all of u so much#nfl#baltimore ravens#patrick queen#the hands jokes done changed my man smh#alSO THAT'S RORO'S BESTIE YOU CAN'T DO THAT TO HIM#they're a package deal. they do not come separately#edc USE UR BRAIN
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About a year ago, I started making a few Dreamblade conversions at the suggestion of Brandes Stoddard on Twitter. A short lived tabletop wargame that had some very cool and unique designs for the miniatures, with some honestly pretty strange mechanics. Having read through the rules a few times it's quite the unusual beast of a game, with the intention of it being a war in a sort of dreamscape, calling up manifested dreams that could be of different factions based on what kind of nightmare they were. Mechanically, it doesn't convert into 5e or 13th Age with any kind of fidelity, but the miniatures and monsters are still really fun so I'm going to go into them again for some fun conversions.
The concept of my conversions will be put together with fluff establishing the monsters as manifested nightmares. The cause of this, and potentially the mastermind behind it I'll leave blank, and if you do really like the idea it's something you can go wherever you like with it. A more grim setting could have it that there's simply no way to stop the nightmares from manifesting and the tone is just holding out as long as possible before inevitable death, a lighter setting could have victory be possible in a number of different ways. It's really up to you, I'm just here to make a bunch some stats for a bunch of really aberrant monsters.
I'm starting where this all began, with the war eagle. A miniature that Brandes had, it's an eagle with a sword for a head. Born from the collective war traumas of elves, they represent war coming to the highest reaches. War eagles are intelligent, to a degree, but like all nightmares they lack free will and are compelled to perform the fear inspired dreams that birthed them. Flights of war eagles will hunt high places, plucking people from trees, cliff tops, and even tall structures to throw them to their death below, and while this may allow them to be directed at certain locations, they don't distinguish between any non-aberrant creatures. Any non-aberration is an equal target, meaning that those who try to recruit them will inevitably come into conflict with their supposed allies.
Originally from the Dreamblade Anvilborn Encyclopedia. This post came out a week ago on my Patreon. If you want to get access to all my monster conversions early, as well as access to my premade adventures and other material I'm working on, consider backing me there!
5th Edition
War Eagle Large aberration, unaligned Armor Class 14 Hit Points 112 (15d10 + 30) Speed 10 ft., fly 80 ft. Str 20 (+5) Dex 18 (+4) Con 15 (+2) Int 8 (-1) Wis 18 (+4) Cha 12 (+1) Saving Throws Dex +7, Con +5, Cha +4 Skills Perception +7 Senses blindsight 500 ft. (blind beyond this radius), passive Perception 17 Languages understands Common but can't speak Challenge 5 (1800 XP) Dive. If the war eagle flies at least 40 feet straight toward a target and then hits it with a blade attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 14 (4d6) slashing damage. Drop. If the war eagle attempts to release a grappled creature that does not wish for the grapple to end, the target can attempt a DC 16 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check as a reaction, maintaining the grapple on a success. Flyby. The war eagle doesn't provoke an opportunity attack when it flies out of an enemy's reach. Actions Multiattack. The war eagle makes two attacks: one with its blade, and one with its talons. Blade. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (3d6+5) slashing damage. Talons. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (2d6+5) slashing damage. If the target is Medium or smaller and weighs less than 270 pounds, the war eagle grapples the target (escape DC 13). If the grappled creature is Small and weighs less than 135 pounds, it is restrained and the eagle can fly at its full speed while grappling the target.
13th Age
War Eagle Large 2nd level wrecker [aberration] Initiative: +8 Face Saber +8 vs. AC - 10 damage Diving Charge: The attack instead deals 20 damage on a hit if the war eagle first moves before attacking an enemy it was not engaged with at the start of its turn. Talon Swipe +7 vs. AC - 12 damage Natural Even Hit: The war eagle can grab the target. When a war eagle starts its turn grabbing an enemy, it can make a lift and drop attack against that target as a standard action that turn. [Special Trigger] Lift and Drop +11 vs. PD (includes +4 grab bonus) - The war eagle pops free from all enemies except the target and flies up into the air. The target then pops free from the war eagle and takes 18 damage as it falls to the ground Natural 18+: One other enemy that was engaged with the war eagle before it made this attack also takes 5 damage as the target falls on it. Flight. AC 17 PD 15 MD 12 HP 72
#D&D#dnd#dungeons and dragons#5th edition#13th age#homebrew#my homebrew#monster#aberration#dnd cr 4#13th age level 2
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AM Conversations : chapter 45
A Niall Horan fanfiction ; rated MA
CHAPTER 1 || CHAPTER 2 || CHAPTER 3 || CHAPTER 4 || CHAPTER 5 || CHAPTER 6 || CHAPTER 7 || CHAPTER 8 || CHAPTER 9 || CHAPTER 10 || CHAPTER 11 || CHAPTER 12 || CHAPTER 13 || CHAPTER 14 || CHAPTER 15 || CHAPTER 16 || CHAPTER 17 || CHAPTER 18 || CHAPTER 19 || CHAPTER 20 || CHAPTER 21 || CHAPTER 22 || CHAPTER 23 || CHAPTER 24 || CHAPTER 25 || CHAPTER 26 || CHAPTER 27 || CHAPTER 28 || CHAPTER 29 || CHAPTER 30 || CHAPTER 31 || CHAPTER 32 || CHAPTER 33 || CHAPTER 34 || CHAPTER 35 || CHAPTER 36 || CHAPTER 37 || CHAPTER 38 || CHAPTER 39 || CHAPTER 40 || CHAPTER 41 || CHAPTER 42 || CHAPTER 43 || CHAPTER 44
NOTES:
-one chapter is her pov, the next is his. -4k // 4.4k -im sorry, i never proofread, i hate it. -there WILL be smut. but not only smut. -this is a romance, comedy, smut story. -for the summary, check my MASTERLIST.
- if you want to be notified when this is updated, please message me or leave a comment!
- note for this chapter: just extra super fluff for this chapter. soo enjoy? i hope you like it haha! also, i know the song she sings comes out a year later buuuut yea, whatever lol! a few more cute fluff chapters before drama happens sooo yea. i hope you guys like it. i know not many ppl read this anymore and its okay. just know i love you guys for being loyal and reading this story after 45 chapters. your comments and reblogs and likes and asks make me so so so happy i cant explain! keep sending ideas youd like to read too :)
only one request for this chapter but its fluff so :P
Chapter 45 : Her chapter
OLIVIA
I felt myself waking up slowly but kept my eyes closed. My lips curled slightly when I heard my boyfriend’s voice from the shower and I forced myself to open my eyes. I sat up in bed and stretched but when I pushed the covers off of me, I felt a shiver run up my spine despite the fact that it was the end of june and that it was most likely very warm outside. I put my feet off the bed and moved my toes on the carpet before breathing in and getting up. The door was ajar and the closer I got, the better I could hear Niall sing. I pushed on the door slightly and leaned against the door frame, listening to his voice as the steam hit my skin and warmed me.
I had never felt so happy in my entire life with someone and even after all these months, I could barely believe we were dating. I crossed my arms on my chest and leaned my head on the frame too, staring at my boyfriend singing and dancing in the shower. After a while he turned to me and saw me staring at him. He smiled back and made a quick head movement but I shook my head slightly. He rolled his eyes with a smile and opened the glass door. His hair was full of foam and he looked cuter than ever, making me nibble on my bottom lip despite myself.
“Please?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and making me roll my eyes.
I took a few steps closer, letting my arms fall on each side of my body, and his lips curled more at my sight. When he was finally able to reach me, he grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me his way, making me chuckle.
“No no, I took a shower last night remember?”
He smirked and raised his eyebrows at me, not letting go. “And then I fucked your brains out, remember?” he replied in a smartass tone. “Come on, you smell like good sex and sweat.”
I laughed at his words and let him pull me with him. He closed the door behind me and I held my breath as the warm water fell on me and soaked my shirt and panties. Niall smiled more and quickly moved his head back right under the stream to rinse his hair. I stared at his naked body as he closed his eyes, running his hand through his hair to make sure all the soap was gone.
Without thinking, I ran my hands on his wet chest and quickly, he moved his head up again and opened his eyes, bending down to reach my smile with his. The kiss was gentle and soft and I felt water drops fall from his hair to my cheek. A wave of well-being washed over me and I pressed my hands more on his chest.
“What were you singing?” I asked, tilting my chin up.
“Something I wrote. I’ll sing it to you when it’s done.”
I smiled and licked my lips, staring at him some more. I felt like Niall hadn’t written anything in months and I knew he was missing it. I loved watching and listening to him when he was playing guitar, or when he was sitting in front of the piano, but it hadn’t happened much until very recently. He was not the type to share and I respected that, but I was curious and interested in everything that made him happy.
“Happy Birthday petal.” he whispered against my mouth. “How does it feel to date a younger man like me?”
I laughed against his mouth and felt his lips curl against mine.
“Feels amazing.” I admitted, still amused. “Better than yesterday, for sure.”
“But not as good as tomorrow, yea, I know.”
I laughed more and felt his hands slip under my drenched shirt, reaching under my breasts slowly. I bit my bottom lip as he stared at me before kissing me again but deeper this time. I could feel my whole body throb until his thumbs brushed under my breasts. I quickly held my breath again, my heartbeats accelerating, but he just slid his hands back down to my waist.
“Mm, come on darling, take a shower, i’ll go prepare something while you do.”
“Nooo!” I complained when he took a step back. “You can’t turn me on and then leave me here alone.”
He laughed and shook his head, pushing the glass door of the shower again and getting out.
“Such a horny girl.” he just let out, clearly amused by my behavior.
I sent him puppy eyes but he just shook his head and closed the door, trapping me in the shower before blowing me a kiss and leaving.
I grimaced but decided to wash my hair and body quickly after getting undressed and when I finally got out of the shower, I grabbed a fluffy towel only to realize it was warm and I quickly wrapped it around me.
“Thanks for putting it in the dryer.” I let out with a smile when I walked back into our bedroom. “You’re perfect.”
He had put sweatpants and a t-shirt back on and I stared at his back as I tried to find a similar outfit in one of his drawers. With a sigh, I took my towel off and dressed up before rubbing the towel in my hair to dry it more. After a few minutes, he turned around and sent me a fond smile and I smiled back until he handed me something.
“This is one of your gifts.” He explained, holding out a box about as large as a book, wrapped in silver and pink paper. “The personal one.”
I felt my heart skip a few beats inside my chest and smiled as big as possible, pressing my lips together. These were the gifts coming from Niall that I preferred. Of course, I enjoyed the trips, the spa days, the jewels and the activities he gave but the gifts with a meaning meant a million times more and Niall always knew exactly what would make me happy. He gave me things I didn’t even know I needed before.
I licked my lips and grabbed it, unwrapping it very slowly as he stared at my fingers. I let the paper fall on the floor when I noticed an old picture of us in a frame. It was the one I told him to bring on his trip and my lips curled more but i noticed something at the bottom and frowned, moving the frame up to have a better look. My lips parted when I noticed what it was and I looked up in his eyes. It was a card that was part of a game Lottie had brought at the lodge. I remembered picking up that card from the “Kiss & Tell” game before rushing to the bathroom and locking myself in it. I hadn’t told anyone what was on the card except Niall. We had been laying in the dark and I had showing him right before telling him it was him I wanted to kiss, but I didn’t have the guts to. I looked down again at the card and read the words. “Kiss the person you love the most in the room.”
“I kept it and I didn’t know why. It was in my wallet all this time. I remember wondering how I would have felt if you had kissed me instead of Harry after picking up that card, you know?” he shrugged and looked down at it. “That night you said you loved me more than anyone else in the world and I said I did too. I didn’t understand back then why it was so important for me but now I do.”
He took a step closer and brought his hands to my waist, waiting until I looked up in his eyes again.
“When we fought a few months ago after my trip, I left you here to get drunk. We both went to bed mad, or at least not on good terms, and I realized how wrong it was. I want to keep this frame in our room, right next to the bed, so every time we fight or argue, we always work things out here before falling asleep. I will always kiss the person I love the most right before I fall asleep. Every single night. I promise.”
I felt myself tear up and swallowed the lump in my throat. I couldn’t talk, I knew that my voice would crack, and without thinking, I crushed my mouth against his, It hurt slightly but he didn’t say anything. He just pulled me closer and deepened the kiss. He tasted so fucking good and I felt tears fall down my face as we kept on kissing for I don’t know how long. When he pulled away, I kept my eyes closed and brushed my lips against his.
“When you said you were romantic I thought you were the type, you know, to give flowers and stuff.”
He laughed and moved his upper body back to look in my eyes.
“There’s a bouquet waiting for you int he kitchen.”
This time, i’m the one who laughed. I turned around and put the frame next to the bed on the small table and sighed as I looked at our younger faces on the picture. I wanted this house to be full of pictures of us, whether they were recent or old.
“Come, let’s go bake that cake of yours.”
I turned back to him with a frown and tilted my head.
“I gotta bake my own birthday cake?”
He laughed and grabbed my hand, pulling me with him until the kitchen and I noticed all the ingredients already out along with a big bouquets of white and purple lilacs placed in the middle of the table.
“The florist said it looked ridiculous and tried to convince me to add other flowers but I knew that’s what you wanted.” he pointed out. “Just in case though, there’s also a bouquet of roses in the living room.”
I smiled more and chuckled, loving the fact that he knew me so well, and took a step closer to him to kiss his lips.
“Aaaand maybe a few tulips next to the piano.” he grimaced before I brushed my lips on his jaw.
“How are you so perfect?”
He searched for my mouth with his and kissed me deeply again. I was not even surprised that his kisses still made butterflies hit the inside of my stomach, even after so many months. I knew it would always be like that.
“Okay, come on now, let’s bake that cake yea?” he said a little louder, getting out of my embrace and turning around to go grab the flour. “We got up late and we have a busy evening and an even busier night!”
“Niall, I said I didn’t want anything big.” I complained with a grimace, letting my head fall back on my shoulders.
“I promise on my life you’re gonna have fun! It’s just a few hours with our friends, and then i’m bringing you somewhere else just the two of us.”
I wanted to be annoyed but the truth was, I was touched and very very curious. I walked up to him as he was cracking an egg, letting it fall in a bowl and I sighed low of happiness.
“Thank you, Niall.”
He turned his head quickly to peck my lips with a light sound and I chuckled.
“Come on, read the recipe out loud will you?”
Quickly, we made the cake mix and ended up having a bit more difficulty working on the icing. I ended up a bit annoyed and searched through his fridge, taking the cream cheese out and putting it on the counter.
“We’ll just prepare the easiest icing ever and pretend we’re amazing bakers, how’s that?”
He laughed and we started working on it in silence right after putting the mix in the oven.
“Just a bit of milk.” I specified. “Do you have vanilla?”
I watched him combine everything in a bowl as I nibbled my bottom lip and added icing sugar slowly to the mix.
“You know, we’re actually a good team.” I pointed out.
I watched him dip his finger in the icing and sticking his tongue out to get a taste.
“Heyy, what about me?” I frowned jokingly before he dipped an other finger in it and wiped the icing on my cheek, making me groan.
“Come here.”
He pulled me closer and licked my cheek, making a shiver run up my spine at the contact of his tongue with my skin.
“You’re right, it tastes amazing, we’re a good team.” he admitted low. “Not just for baking.”
He took the icing again, taking more of it with his finger and putting it on my neck. I held my breath as his tongue ran on my skin and quivered again in his arms.
“I just took a shower, remember?”
“Oh shut up.” he let out, making me laugh, as he grabbed my waist and pulled me closer.
“Can I get a taste, too?”
Without answering, he brought his lips against mine and kissed me deeply but very slowly. I closed my eyes, running my hand in his hair and letting a moan escape my lips. He swallowed it and I felt his fingers slip slightly under my shirt, on the skin of my back. I laughed against his mouth when he broke the kiss and shook my head.
“I meant you know, really taste.”
“Mmhm.” he shrugged, pulling away and taking the icing bowl. “I know that’s what you meant, but you can’t taste your cake before tonight.”
“But-”
“Don’t argue!” he cut me with a smirk. “Go in the living room, i’ll join you, okay?”
I groaned and let my feet rub on the wood floor in an annoying noise as a sign of protestation. It’s only when I reached the living room that my lips curled back again. There was a literal fort made with blankets and cushions and I let out a chuckle of amazement.
“Niall?” I asked loud enough for him to hear.
“Sit down! I’m coming!”
I chuckled and got on my knees, pushing the blanket that acted as a door only to sit on the tiny mattress. I couldn’t believe he had taken the time to make a fort in his own living room and I started wondering how long it took him to plan that. He had placed his tablet on the side and when he joined me, I frowned slightly.
“Why did you bring this?” I asked, pointing it right before a smile reappeared on my face.
He handed me a bowl of ice cream and I started jumping slightly on my ass while still sitting.
“Don’t move too much, it’s not that solid.” he laughed a bit. “I thought we could watch a movie together?”
I sent him a fond smile and tilted my head again before nodding very slowly.
“Great! So I bought your favorite ice cream but added candies, chocolate syrup and caramel, the way you like it.”
“Thank you, Nee.” I let out as he sat in front of me. I moved my upper body closer to kiss him. “Thank you so fucking much.” I kissed him again. “Thank you.” Again. “Thank you.” And again.
“You also get to pick the movie.” he let out with a smile, kissing me back. “We’ll watch anything you want. It’s your day.”
I sat back and looked at him with a smirk, raising my eyebrows as his face changed.
“Now you’re scaring me.” he admitted as I laughed, grabbing his tablet. “Wait what are you doing? Isn’t the movie you want to watch on netflix?”
I held his tablet against me and raised my eyebrows at him again.
“Do you promise we’ll watch whatever I want?”
It took him a few seconds but he finally nodded.
“I promise.”
—
The bar was loud and crowed but we quickly found our friends waiting for us, sitting a bit further with beer and sangria pitchers. I smiled more, a bit excited, and everyone greeted us, telling me ‘happy birthday’ for the first time in person on that day. Louis was the last one and he got up to wrap his arms around me before I hugged him back.
“Happy birthday princess.” he whispered after kissing one of my cheeks and pulling me closer. “I hope your day is perfect, that’s what you deserve.”
I laughed when we pulled away and bit on my bottom lip.
“It is, I have the perfect boyfriend and he made this day perfect.”
We sat down and I felt Niall’s hand slide on my thigh. I quickly put my hand over his and intertwined our fingers, squeezing them hard.
“What did she make you watch?” Louis asked with a smirk. “Back To The Future again?”
Niall’s smile fell and he rolled his eyes, making Louis laugh.
“Which one?”
“Louis, don’t even ask.” Niall argued, shaking his head and making me smile more.
“We didn’t watch Back To The Future.” I pointed out, leaning on the table to get closer to Louis. “I made him watch This Is Us.”
Louis’ eyes moved from me to Niall then back at me and finally on Niall before he burst into laughter, making Niall growl next to me. I squeezed his fingers tighter but I couldn’t help the smile that spread on my face.
“How was it, Neil? To watch a movie with you in it with your girlfriend by your side?” Louis teased.
Niall raised his eyebrows and nose up as he leaned one of his elbow on the table, staring in his friend’s eyes.
“The worst was actually looking at you for an hour and a half, Tommo.”
Louis laughed again and shrugged.
“Guess you’re cursed, mate, because here I am again!”
I laughed and rolled my eyes at their banter until Louis grabbed a glass and poured me sangria. Niall did the same for himself with beer and he finally sighed, the left corner of his lips raising up.
“You know, I can’t really blame her though.” Niall joked. “The girl enjoys looking at me, I just give her what she needs.”
“Oh shut up.” I let out, making him laugh more. “Now what’s so special about tonight? Why are we here anyway?”
I glanced around before meeting Louis’ eyes and he smirked, raising his eyebrows. I didn’t like it and frowned, suddenly a bit scared of what was to come. Julie chuckled and it caught my attention, making me look at her.
“It’s karaoke night.” she explained with a sigh but also a smile on her lips. “And apparently, we’re all going to sing.”
I felt suddenly extremely nervous and without realizing it, I squeezed my boyfriend’s fingers hard between mine.
“Ouch, darling, watch the fingers, they’re important.” he chuckled. “For music and for… you know.. pleasure.”
“Niall.” I whispered, looking down at our hands together. “You know I hate being on a scene. I don’t like attention.”
“You did it a few years ago and you had fun.”
I sent him an annoyed look and sighed, raising my nose up in a grimace. He was right, I had sang a song a while ago at a karaoke night and we always had a lot of fun doing those in someone’s living room, but in public it was a bit different. I was already a bit shy around my friends, so to think i would do it in front of a bunch of strangers made it even worse.
“Here.” Louis let out, pushing the sangria pitcher closer. “Drink up. I’ll go first.”
I swallowed the whole glass in front of me and filled it out again as I watched Louis get on stage and grab a microphone.
“Here’s one of the best written songs in the whole world.” he only explained as the music started.
I held my breath and smiled when I recognized the oasis song and mouthed it with him.
“So Sally can wait, she knows it’s too late as she’s walking on by My soul slides away, but don’t look back in anger I heard you say.”
When he was done and the music stopped, we all got up and started clapping. Liam even whistled loud and I let out a ‘woohoo!“ when he got off stage. He hugged me and bent down to whisper in my ear.
“Do it now, it’s worth it.”
I quickly nodded and he moved away. He extended his hand and I slapped in it before bumping my fist against his.
“Come on, you can do it.” he added as I sent him a smile.
I turned to Niall and I smiled without thinking. I watched him push his glasses on his nose and a bunch of memories of us came back to my mind. I felt so lucky to have him in my life and I chuckled.
“Just for you.”
I didn’t wait for his answer and ran up the stairs as a guy walked up to me to ask me which song I wanted to sing. I told him and he chuckled before nodding and finally left after handing me the microphone.
“I dedicate this to my best friend in the whole wide world.”
The first notes started and I kept my gaze on Niall and when I started singing, I saw him start laughing hard, his mouth wide open. He let his head fall back and clapped in his hands a few times to encourage me.
“Right from the start, couldn’t pull us apart, it just works Nobody else ever gets me as well on this earth Like rock and roll, Marshall’s and telly’s Mac and cheese, PB’s and jellies Some things are better together, and that’s you and me-e
Dude, I love you, bro, I love you Man, I love you You’re my brother from another, 'nother mother You are my favorite, I’m not ashamed to admit Cause I do, dude, I do Dude, I love you, bro, I love you Man, I love you You’re my homie, no one knows me like you know me Like the sun and the moon, all the best things comes in two What would I do without a friend like you?
W-w-w-w-what would I do? Without a friend like you W-w-w-w-what would I do? Without a friend like you?”
I smiled as I sang when I noticed all my friends were standing up and dancing together and when the song stopped, I bowed down quickly and ran back to my friends without really giving them any attention. Niall bent down slightly, his arms open, and I ran to him.. He picked me up for a few seconds and put me back down before kissing me hard, laughing against my lips.
“Good song. Thank you.” he whispered, pulling away. “Now listen to mine, yea?”
I nodded and he grabbed my hand before walking to the stage. When he was far enough, my hand slipped out of his and I just stared at him as he grabbed the microphone. He cleared his throat and licked his lips, making my heart melt in my chest. I sat down but remained on the edge of my chair as he talked.
“For the love of my life.”
It took me literally one note to recognize the song and I held my breath as I felt myself tense. I tried to remember all the words of the song and something twisted in my stomach.
“You’re a falling star, you’re the get away car You’re the line in the sand when I go too far You’re the swimming pool on an August day And you’re the perfect thing to see
And you play it coy, but it’s kinda cute Oh, when you smile at me you know exactly what you do Baby, don’t pretend that you don’t know it’s true 'Cause you can see it when I look at you
And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times It’s you, it’s you; you make me sing You’re every line, you’re every word, you’re everything”
I don’t know why but slowly, I got up and walked closer to the scene as we stared at each other. Was it possible for this love story to last forever? Could this love we felt for each other never fade away or die?
“You’re a carousel, you’re a wishing well And you light me up when you ring my bell You’re a mystery, you’re from outer space You’re my every minute of my everyday
And I can’t believe, uh, that I’m your man And I get to kiss you, baby, just because I can Whatever comes our way, oh, we’ll see it through And you know that’s what our love can do
And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times It’s you, it’s you; you make me sing You’re every line, you’re every word, you’re everything
So, la, la, la, la, la, la, la So, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times It’s you, it’s you; you make me sing You’re every line, you’re every word, you’re everything You’re every song, and I sing along Cause you’re my everything Yeah, yeah
So, la, la, la, la, la, la, la So, la, la, la, la, la, la-la-la, la-la-la”
I didn’t scream when he was done but I heard all our friends do it. He jumped off the stage and cupped my face the way he had done it after playing the song he had written for me and when his wet lips met mine, my eyes fluttered close.
“It’s been six moths but I love you as much as I did back then, maybe even more.” he whispered, kissing me deeply again. “Definitely more.”
“Thank you, Niall.” I breathed out, swallowing hard as I felt myself tear up for the second time that day. “This day is perfect.”
“This day is not over.” he added, smiling more, the palms of his hands warming my already burning cheeks. “Happy birthday Olivia, I love you.”
#niall horan#niall horan smut#niall horan fluff#niall horan story#niall horan writing#niall horan fanfic#niall horan fan fic#niall horan fanfiction#niall horan fan fiction#my fanfics#amc#im always super unsure of my chapters but oh well f it#thats it i hope you like it
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India’s Vistara Airline Appoints APG as Online GSA in France
India’s Vistara airline, a joint venture between TATA Sons and Singapore Airlines, has appointed APG as its representation company in France. Based in New Delhi, Vistara started operations five years ago and today connects 34 cities and operates more than 200 flights a day with a fleet of 31 Airbus A320 and 9 Boeing 737-800NG aircraft. Vistara is hoping to have a total of 42 aircraft in its fleet by March 2020, including India’s first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and the Airbus A321neo.
The airline is on course to induct more than 50 new aircraft, a mix of narrow-body and wide-body, within the next four years, moving forward in its vision of becoming a global airline of choice. Vinod Kannan, Chief Commercial Officer, Vistara, said, “We’re delighted to join hands with APG to lead our sales and servicing activities in France, an important travel source market for India. With Vistara’s sales presence now in France, more travellers will enjoy seamless connectivity on India’s only five-star airline.” Sandrine de Saint Sauveur, President & CEO APG Inc, said: “APG is delighted to start a cooperation with Vistara in France. The links between India and France are strong and I believe this is a start to a success story between our two companies." Vistara is available on all the GDS under the code UK-228. See latest Travel News, Interviews, Podcasts and other news regarding: APG, France, Vistara. 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The 10 dumbest mistakes from NFL Week 13, ranked
Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
There weren’t many predictable outcomes this week, except the Chargers Chargering and the Panthers getting stopped at the goal line.
Just when you think this NFL season couldn’t get weirder, a day like Sunday happens. It started off with a t-shirt beef between the Steelers and Browns. It ended with the Texans beating the Patriots for just the second time ever and the first since a meaningless Week 17 meeting 10 years ago.
In between, the Dolphins, who some thought could be a historically bad team, won their third game of 2019. The Bengals won a game, officially ending all hopes for (or dreading of) an 0-16 season. And Washington is somehow still alive in the NFC East race.
Week 13 didn’t just deliver unexpected outcomes. It also gave us some plays that were bat-fecal crazy. There was DeAndre Hopkins’ reverse option pitch to Deshaun Watson, the Dolphins’ punter-to-kicker touchdown, and the Titans’ blocked field goal turned touchdown that helped them conquer the Colts for only the fourth time in their last 23 tries.
Frequently throughout Sunday, we were all left looking like Jon Gruden during a trip to Oz:
Me thinking about how much food I've eaten since Thursday and how little I've worked out pic.twitter.com/Am9IKE3edw
— Morgan Moriarty (@Morgan_Moriarty) December 1, 2019
Luckily, we can take comfort in one constant each week in the NFL: There will always be dumb mistakes. Here are our top 10 from this Sunday:
10. Antoine Bethea couldn’t handle Allen Lazard’s 30-degree angle
Late in the first quarter, the Giants fell back into quarters coverage for a second-and-1 play against the Packers in their own territory. That put pressure on Bethea’s shoulders to handle wideout Lazard from his position near the slot.
Bethea was not ready for this pressure.
Allen Lazard really hit 'em with the ...uh, slight change in direction pic.twitter.com/SEJlxO5o5A
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) December 1, 2019
Lazard curled off toward the post while Bethea turned the opposite way, leaving the second-year receiver wide open for a 33-yard touchdown pass from Aaron Rodgers.
9. Tahir Whitehead got two penalties on the same play to give the Chiefs a first down
The Raiders didn’t have much of a chance in Kansas City after falling behind 21-0 at halftime, but they were still clinging to hope when they backed the Chiefs into a third-and-11 situation in the third quarter. Oakland needed a big play to shut down Kansas City and jump start its comeback. Whitehead was hell bent on getting it on an inside blitz.
And in the process, he gifted the Chiefs a fresh set of downs.
Tahir Whitehead with the rare offside/late hit double after the refs blow the play dead on 3rd down pic.twitter.com/lmC3749xsM
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) December 1, 2019
Whitehead jumped offside, and his unimpeded run at Patrick Mahomes forced officials to blow the play dead. The linebacker didn’t hear that, though, and while Mahomes chucked the ball away, Whitehead shoved the QB to the turf — earning a predictable 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty that granted Kansas City a free first down. Three plays later, the Chiefs would kick a 50-yard field goal on their way to a 40-9 win.
8. Two roughing the passer penalties cost the 49ers dearly
The Ravens are the last team in the league you want to give free yards to on defense. Lamar Jackson with more opportunities is a bad time for everyone not named Lamar Jackson. And while the 49ers and Ravens combined for a fantastic game that both teams should feel good about, there were moments where San Francisco’s role players messed up big time.
In the second quarter, the 49ers made a great third-down stop, but rookie linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair was called for a deflating penalty after hitting Jackson late. That roughing the passer flag turned a likely field goal attempt into a first down. The Ravens went on to score a touchdown four plays later.
Less than 10 minutes after that, Sheldon Day was also called for roughing the passer when he went low on Jackson:
Sheldon Day gets called for RTP pic.twitter.com/lSi0194b6V
— GoatWorldSports ⚾️ (@GoatWorldSport1) December 1, 2019
Baltimore wound up kicking a field goal on the drive.
The game was eventually decided on, yup, a Ravens field goal.
7. Jacoby Brissett made some extremely backup throws
Brissett has been solid in his first year as Andrew Luck’s successor in Indianapolis. His steady presence behind center, even as his receiving corps was shredded by injury, was a major factor in his team’s presence in the playoff race.
But on Sunday, Brissett gave the football world two big reminders why he was regarded as a high-value backup and not a starter before August. The first was a high pass that saw Brissett take entirely too long to make a decision in a clean pocket, then rush a bad decision once a defender broke into his airspace.
That's our franchise safety! #TENvsIND @KB31_Era + #ProBowlVote pic.twitter.com/a4h2Nq88y7
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) December 1, 2019
That set the Titans up inside the Indianapolis red zone, where they’d settle for an easy field goal that tied the score at 17. Brissett’s second pick was equally damaging. The big-armer passer overthrew his target in double-coverage while trying to spark a comeback from a 24-17 deficit late in the fourth quarter. Logan Ryan slid over to make an easy catch, and three plays later Indianapolis trailed by 14.
Send Logan Ryan to the Pro Bowl! #TENvsIND @RealLoganRyan + #ProBowlVote pic.twitter.com/GuIx4uRMfn
— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) December 1, 2019
Brissett’s two interceptions led to 10 Titans points in a pivotal AFC South matchup. Now the Colts are 6-6 and facing an uphill battle on their path to the postseason.
6. Daniel Jones kept mixing up the Packers and his own teammates in the snow
It was a snowy afternoon at MetLife Stadium. Perhaps a North Carolina native like Jones wasn’t quite used to the blustery conditions, because the rookie quarterback seemed to think the Packers’ cornerbacks were his teammates all day.
Jones was picked off three times, the first of which went right into the hands of Green Bay’s Kevin King as if he, and not Darius Slayton, had been Jones’ target:
.@King_kevvoo grabs his fourth INT of the season! #GBvsNYG | #GoPackGo pic.twitter.com/CdLdeZTc1R
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) December 1, 2019
His second one even worse. It was directly to Darnell Savage, with no Giants receiver in the vicinity:
INTERCEPTION! @darnellsavage_ takes it the other way! #GBvsNYG | #GoPackGo pic.twitter.com/uGMFCxgM64
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) December 1, 2019
His third pick of the game came later in the fourth quarter, and either he overthrew Slayton just enough so Tramon Williams could go up and grab it:
Go get it, @HighRizer22! #GBvsNYG | #GoPackGo pic.twitter.com/pg20OVEazW
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) December 1, 2019
Or it was a perfect throw to Williams, whom Jones mistook for his own teammate.
The Giants dropped to 2-10 on the season with the loss, but at least you can chalk up some of Jones’ miscues to his inexperience. The same can’t be said for ...
5. Nick Foles threw an interception you’d expect out of a rookie
The Jaguars haven’t won a game with Nick Foles — an $88 million offseason acquisition — starting at quarterback. They did win four of the eight games sixth-round rookie Gardner Minshew started, but he was sent back to the bench when Foles returned from a shoulder injury. The logic was presumably that the 30-year-old veteran quarterback would make fewer mistakes and give the Jaguars offense some more stability.
Well ...
#Jaguars QB Nick Foles with an interception on the first drive of the game. pic.twitter.com/F0uS2Svihe
— Big Sad Country (@BigCatCountry) December 1, 2019
The Buccaneers capitalized on the turnover with a touchdown. Foles’ day got worse with a fumble on his next two drives, including one that was picked up and returned for a touchdown. After that, three consecutive three-and-out drives.
Foles was benched at halftime with the Jaguars trailing 25-0 and it’ll likely be for good. Minshew took over in the second half and suddenly the Jacksonville offense looked halfway competent again.
4. The Browns could’ve used the mysterious absent Damarious Randall
The decision to keep Randall out of action in Week 13 was never really explained by coach Freddie Kitchens. “Something that happened during the week” was the reason cited by Cleveland.com.
So it’s hard to say if it was Kitchens’ dumb mistake, or if it was Randall’s, or if it was some combination of both. What we can say is that the Browns sure could’ve used Randall on the field against the Steelers — especially after losing safety Morgan Burnett to a torn Achilles two weeks ago.
Pittsburgh’s rookie quarterback Devlin Hodges completed passes of 28, 30, 31, and 44 yards against the Cleveland secondary. Some of those throws were into traffic, but the Browns defensive backs couldn’t make a play.
That was incredible.@JamesWashington hangs on for the unreal TD catch! #HereWeGo #CLEvsPIT : CBS : NFL app // Yahoo Sports app Watch free on mobile: https://t.co/uPnyeJSIAR pic.twitter.com/uGazaZsEz0
— NFL (@NFL) December 1, 2019
The Browns had a chance to get back to .500 and climb back into playoff contention. Instead, a 20-13 loss may have ended their season. Not having Randall on the field was costly, regardless of who deserves the blame.
3. The Chargers false started twice on the most important play of their afternoon
Los Angeles trailed 20-17 with just over two minutes to play when it faced a crucial fourth-and-1 from its own 34-yard line. Gain a yard and the Chargers’ comeback chances would remain intact.
On the team’s first try, Melvin Gordon appeared to pick up the first down on a pitch, only for the play to be whistled dead thanks to a false start:
Malik Reed sympathetically patting Melvin Gordon on the head while explaining his fourth-and-1 run doesn't count because of a false start is an extremely nice way to break that news pic.twitter.com/jYSc8mCnk6
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) December 2, 2019
That set up fourth-and-6, and it appeared the Broncos had given those five yards right back when a Denver defender jumped offside off the right side of the LA line the following play. But his neutral zone infraction came at the same time left tackle Russell Okung flinched, and since Okung was on the opposite side of the line, that meant the false start superseded any offside call.
Fortunately for Los Angeles, Mike Williams made a ridiculous play to haul in a 38-yard pass on fourth-and-11 to erase those back-to-back penalties. That led to a 46-yard Michael Badgley field goal that tied the game with just 14 seconds before the end of regulation.
Somehow, the Chargers avoided pulling a complete Chargers ... until they did.
2. Casey Hayward gave the Chargers a loss everyone knew was coming
The Broncos had two options when they got the ball back from the Chargers at their own 28 with nine seconds left in a tie game. They could kneel out the clock and play for overtime, or they could give Drew Lock, making his NFL debut, the chance to make a big play.
Denver chose the latter, and Hayward — a former All-Pro and one of LA’s top defensive backs — gave Lock all the help he needed.
here's the penalty that set up the Broncos' game-winning field goal with 3 seconds to play pic.twitter.com/9ic2KaTLNs
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) December 2, 2019
Hayward failed to track the ball, running into intended receiver Courtland Sutton and drawing a pass interference flag that gifted the Broncos 37 crucial yards. One play later, Brandon McManus’ 53-yard field goal parted the uprights to claim a 23-20 win and send the Chargers spiraling to 4-8 on the year.
But at least this time they lost in a different way?
1. Once again, the Panthers couldn’t get the job done at the goal line
Carolina lost 29-21 to Washington, and a big reason the Panthers lost was what they did on the goal line late in the game. With 27 seconds left and trailing by eight, the Panthers had fourth-and-goal following two Christian McCaffrey stuffs and an incomplete pass. Quarterback Kyle Allen dropped back to pass and despite having Jarius Wright wiiiide open in the end zone, he took a sack.
The GIF of this play is simply hilarious:
Here’s fourth-and-the-season for the Panthers. pic.twitter.com/VresISdjTj
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) December 1, 2019
The live version is just as incredible:
Kyle Allen had a wide open touchdown and just didn't throw it on 4th down. #Redskins win.pic.twitter.com/hGiBpS7Gvu
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) December 1, 2019
This is now the FOURTH of the Panthers’ seven losses that has ended on a goal-line stop. They also lost to the Bucs, Packers, and Saints in similar fashion. To falsely paraphrase Einstein, maybe they should stop expecting a different result.
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Sticking With the Schuylers (41)
The answer to your question is yes, we’ll get back to the fluff. Eventually. For now, let’s catch up with Alex.
(I’m waking up in like 5 hours to go to the gym why do I do this to myself)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1112 I 13 14 15 16 17 18A 18B 18C I 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 I 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
Tagging: @linsnavi
The steps from his-Eliza’s-apartment to the one he had shared with his friends are familiar. It doesn’t take too long to get from one to the other, as long as one’s timing with the subway is right. Alex doesn’t even bother with the subway; he has too many bags, anyway. And then he’d walked so far with his head in a fog that he’d missed the station completely, and hadn’t noticed until a few blocks had passed. Now, he’s stranded. Alexander stands ankle-deep in snow that bites with cold, in grey and frayed sweatpants torn from well-wear and only meant for home. His street-worn Converse are shoes he threw on in his hurry, and regret seeps into his skin just as the moisture of snow melts into his socks. Dampness consumes him as he stares at the streets ahead.
His breath comes out in quickly dispersing streams of fog, the night becoming much too bitter to be hanging around with work-weakened arms. They hold the belongings he’d toted the other way not so long before. Six weeks hadn’t seemed like a long time, in the grand scheme of things. They say that it takes even longer to create a habit of something, but Alexander had made his home in only 42 days. In those days he’d gotten used to a lot of things. He’d gotten used to Eliza’s company.
Coming home to her had become something of a treasure; the one thing he longed for from the moment she left the warmth of their bed. Working longer hours was both arduous and easy-he loved his work but he loved the feeling of her weight on his lap and her legs dangled over his more. She’d always make sure he wasn’t working past capacity. Then, there was their routine; carefully crafted upon unspoken words and that habit that had built in much shorter a time than normal.
Eliza was always the first out of bed-stretched out to meet and sometimes even beat the rising sun. She always showered in the morning, and she always sang. Even when she thought he was still sleeping (he rarely slept past the time he felt her leave the bed), she hummed quietly, moving around in a sort of unintentional dance of contagious optimism. It always took him a little longer to leave the warmth of the bed and the dream-like light of gold seeping through soft curtains, but the humming and dancing always drew him out much sooner than he’d been accustomed to. Then he’d brew the coffee while Eliza made breakfast and they’d sit together at the island, happy in each other’s company. When it was their apartment, an almost whimsical feeling of warmth hung in the air. The walls were dusted with hues of gold and shining with a sun that existed only in Eliza’s gentle smile.
When her apartment was theirs, Alexander lived in a constant state not of bliss, but of peace. His feelings lingered on a limb between settled and secure and relaxed, something he had not felt in years to come. Happiness snuck up on him slowly and wrapped its copper-dusted vines around him, climbing and enveloping and taking him over until he had been consumed with nothing but his own smile and warmth and light. And that vine reached so far, past his gut and his heart and his head, that often it transported Alexander. When he slept, that happiness extended to a place of consistent sunlight and ocean waves and small village shacks and marbles played on sand-dusted grounds. That copper vine took that sunlight and transferred its warmth to his heart, where often he felt his mother’s soft gaze or her hand through his hair or her voice, echoed in gentle song with his name over and over again. With Eliza-with this happiness-the good memories came easily.
He’s not sure what he’s going to do without her.
Maybe it’s dramatic, the way leaving her had feels like the end of a chapter. Somewhere within his mind is a voice which sounds its harrowing echo, teasing and taunting and creeping its way back in. And the further he gets away from his sun, with his snow-soaked shoes and the cold biting at his exposed skin, the worse the voices get.
When he finally makes it to the old apartment his feet refuse to carry him any farther. Alex stands on the sidewalk, looking up at the place that had once felt like home. Before, this slightly run-down building had been a beacon. He’d known each crack in the sidewalk, each piece of dried-up gum stuck there. There was the old woman, still sat on the bench feeding birds that come dutifully to her side even though the January air chills their tiny feet. There’s the florist, who is treasured despite the fact that his flowers are almost always on the brink of death. And then there’s the door, that front door to the apartment building, with its little call box secured on the brick wall beside it.
This is where Alex deposits his bags on the only dry patch of concrete he can find, in a haphazard pile. His shoulders ache. He stretches his arms to the sky. This exercise becomes a piece of the process that he prolongs quite generously, as his mind is still foggy and unable to fit together exactly what is happening. His finger hovers over the button for 403, and drops back to his side. The only other time he had had to call to be let in, he’d left his keys in the library at Columbia during finals his sophomore year. He’d been young, exhausted, and eager to find success at every turn back then. Not much has changed. He’d come all the way back to the apartment practically dragging his feet before remembering his mistake, and by then it had been too late to go back and retrieve his keys from the stack of books he’d thrown in the return. He’d gotten teased mercilessly that night, especially after waking everyone up so early in the morning. Then, Alex had been welcomed back with open arms and midnight snacks. But now…
Now, he’s unsure of what to do. Now he has no key, no real tie to this place after he’d shoved it in John’s hands six weeks ago. He’s not even sure if his room is still in-tact. He’d been too ashamed to ask. He’d still come over for game nights every Friday, but so had Eliza and Angelica and even Peggy. Their dynamic hadn’t seemed to change other than the fact that when the consoles were shut off and the drinks gone, Alex would walk out the door instead of crawling to his bedroom. He still spent his allotted half hour between classes with John at Starbucks, joking and laughing as if things were still normal. Hercules still joined him in the library, sitting across from Alex and Eliza as she tutored them in language-which often meant teaching them how to say phrases meant more for the bedroom than every day conversation. He’d even made them a host of new pillow covers when she’d mentioned how their decorations weren’t quite coming together yet.
Lafayette has been a different story.
Alex hasn’t seen him since the night he’d moved. For six Fridays, he’s been too busy to come to game night, claiming study sessions or work or Skype calls to his family overseas. Bullshit, he hates them. He thinks-he knows-that there isn’t a stitch of truth within these excuses. He’d been too polite to say anything with Eliza present but more than anything he’d wanted to call his friend out, ask him why he was choosing to ostracize Alex instead of confronting whatever made him hate Eliza with such an unjustified passion.
He supposes, as he raises his finger to the call button, that there’s no such time as the present.
“Hey, it’s Alex. Can you let me up?” No answer. He waits a moment for the familiar click of the stairwell unlocking, but it does not come. So he presses the button again, repeating his message louder and with more certainty. It takes a minute for the lock to click open. He treads the familiar path with his feet weighing heavily on old wooden stairs, each creak familiar. They stab at his feet as the memories-good memories-come flying back. It’s not the end. It feels like the end.
When he reaches the door it’s already open, with John on the other side. He takes one look at Alex, snow-soaked and miserable, and pulls half of the bags from his hands before leading him inside. He says nothing; John has a gift for knowing his best friend’s expressions, and this one is dark and consuming. This expression reads nothing more than ‘don’t ask.’ So he doesn’t. Instead, he moves the bags into Alex’s old bedroom, which to his relief has gone generally untouched in the past six weeks. It’s almost as if they’d expected him to fail. He can’t say he’s surprised that he did.
Hercules comes out a while later, seeking a snack but finding Alex’s sunken frame on the couch instead. He moves to the fridge, rooting around before pulling out two beers. John is sat at the counter, nursing a glass of water with downturned lips and a shaking head.
“He’s been like this for an hour.” John won’t turn his gaze from Alex, even though neither of the two have moved an inch since he’s walked in. Herc turns the two glass bottles in his hands, considering the situation at hand.
“What happened?”
“I haven’t asked.” When Herc’s eyebrows raise, and his mouth drops slightly, John sits up in his chair. “He came with bags, all of his stuff just dropped in his room. He walked here. I don’t think he wants to talk about why he suddenly has to be back here so fuck off, Herc.”
“John, chill. I wasn’t saying you’re not a good friend. We all know how Alex gets. I’ll try and get something out of him.”
Hercules Mulligan has a way about himself that is often completely unexpected, and yet Alex knows when he feels the shift of weight on the couch just what is about to happen. His mind has shut off. He refuses to acknowledge the cold condensation of the beer bottle on his arm, pricking against his fingers in an attempt to breathe life into him. Life will not come. Herc sighs, staring over at John who simply shrugs his shoulders in response. I told you so. But the larger, overly gentle figure of a friend is not done yet. He places both beers on the coffee table and puts his hands in his lap, looking over at Alexander without a break in contact between his eyes and Alex’s turned face.
“Alex.” He calls his name softly, at first, an attempt to break the exterior his friend has put up. Alexander keeps his eyes trained on the droplets of water that have begun to slink their way slowly down the neck of the glass bottles, gathering in a puddle on the wood of the coffee table. Eliza would have used a coaster. “Alex, what happened? Why are all your things back here?”
He figures it’s the nicest way anybody could have asked the question without actually asking it, and Alex appreciates the effort although it still stings. Did she break up with you? The words linger unspoken in the air between the three friends, especially from John’s quiet hideout at the kitchen island. He almost wishes they would ask outright-that the situation would be solved with one answer and the ability to hide in his room. He lets them sit and wonder for a while, exhausted and unwilling to speak. Herc takes a long pull of his beer before clearing his throat, drumming his fingertips on his leg.
“There’ll be other girls,”
“Alex.” Three heads turn to face the hallway, where a slightly disheveled Lafayette stands staring at the scene in front of him. He runs a hand over his poufy, full head of hair, which has been slightly disrupted by sleep. His dark eyes are covered by squinting eyelids, the light in the living room an immediate offense. John rises from his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. Alex remains silent; his name drips from Lafayette’s lips, deadpan.
“What are you doing here?” He doesn’t move, not to walk away from Alex nor to get closer. He leans against the wall of the hallway, looking simultaneously disinterested and frustrated.
“He lives here.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Cool it.” Herc stands too, positioning himself in the middle of his roommates although nobody has moved to make a physical threat. He takes in a deep breath of air in hopes that they will do the same, but the only person responsive to this tactic is John. Alex has not done so much as blink, letting the beginnings of the argument crash around him. He has had enough today.
“He’s moving back in with us.”
“When did we decide this?”
“Alex has lived here just as long as any of us. If he wants his room back he can have it.”
“Who was the one that left us in the first place? And for what, a girl who wanted him for half a second then left him out to dry?”
“Laff,”
“-I’m not the one who chose upper society over my friends! I’m not the one who left them hanging with his portion of the rent!”
“You know Alex is still paying his share, you’re full of shit.” John’s usually pacified, lopsided grin has turned into a crooked sort of smirk painted with tensed muscles and narrowed eyes. A bubbling of anger boils inside of him, like the slow cooking of a lobster screaming from the tension of the rolling heat. Alex’s sadness-his foggy, muted state-pains John more than he’d thought it would. He won’t even let his eyes near his friend again for fear of feeling too much at one time. In his mind, he’s gathering an extensive list of curses aimed toward both Lafayette and Eliza. And Alex just sits.
“All I know is that for almost three years Alex was here, and one day he was just gone. How do we know he’s not going to leave again in a week when Eliza decides she wants her toy back?”
“If you were able to see anything past your own mind then you’d know to shut the fuck up right now.” It’s the first time Alex has spoken since he entered the apartment-since he left Eliza’s. Lafayette’s pompous voice, dripping with arrogance and a nasally sort of pride, has been digging into him since he decided to join the conversation. He hadn’t expected this piece of the conversation to go well, truthfully, but he’d thought his friend would have the decency to sit and listen to him before deciding his fate. Alexander had tried sitting idly by when he was a child. It hadn’t worked. Now, he feels the immediate urgency to protect and to defend more than ever. His tone is dark and grumbling and his syllables laced with biting diction, so much so that he’s practically spitting out his words. Lafayette staggers backward in defense.
“You want me to see past my own mind? What about you? What about you never even considering us when you went ahead and decided your life would be all about Eliza? What about the fact that that decision was pointless because all those girls want is a quick fuck before they get bored anyway?”
“-You leave her out of this.” John is the first to notice the changes in Alex, the way his body increasingly tenses and his posture leans forward. At the mention of Eliza’s name he’s seen enough to launch himself forward the millisecond it happens. He catches Alex just as his hand, accompanied by a tightly closed fist, is just inches away from the Frenchman’s face. The two stagger forward, toppling to the carpet while their friends watch. Hercules holds a hand poised and ready to stop his twiggish friend, but Lafayette does not make any moves to continue the instigated fight. Alex, still held back by John, stand and brushes himself off. His physical gusto has retired, but the verbal fire still burns bright and crackling with a new intensity set off by the embarrassment of missing his punch.
“You have no idea what’s going on, you never could. You’re always going on and on about how wrong Manhattan and high society and people like them are but you’re worse than them. You’re a fucking hypocrite. I’m sorry that your own family sucked but here’s a newsflash-you’re not the only one suffering here. You’re not the only one who’s been through deep shit. And you’re not allowed to walk around here like you own the place just because some high society French girl decided that you weren’t good enough for her, or because your family is full of piece-of-shit people who don’t know how to use their money.”
“-Don’t you dare,”
“-I’m not done. I’m so sick and tired of you deciding you know everything about someone before giving them half a second to explain. You know what? This separation sucks. And no, I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t been essentially kicked out. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but in an adult relationship, when you’re done screwing anything with its legs open, you have to make sacrifices you don’t really want to make sometimes. And it’s hard, and it’s painful, but you do it. And you can be upset with me for it but I’m doing this for Eliza, not for you. I could give two shits what you have to say to me right now because I’m trying to keep someone I love safe and happy and if that means moving out I’d move a fucking ocean away from her. That’s how love works. We’re not going to be stupid college kids forever.”
“Va te faire mettre! You’ve always been a dramatic piece of shit and you know it. You say I’m going after you because of my own life? I know my life was shit. But I never threw it away for some girl and that’s why I’m here right now. What about you? What happens when she doesn’t love you anymore? What happens then, when you’re used and thrown out and she’s got some other guy doing her dirty work for her?”
“Shut up.”
“-And we’re not going to be in college forever, you’re right. But at least I have the decency to treat the friends I’ve had since I moved here with respect. John was your first friend-when was the last time you thanked him for being there?”
“You’re not throwing him into this too.” At this point, Alexander has closed the distance between himself and Lafayette. Although the French man is much taller than he is, he makes up for his lack of height with the biting acidity of his voice. The more Lafayette pushes, the louder Alex gets. “I’ve had enough of you-your attitude, your ego...”
“Casse toi, va te faire cuire le cui!”
“Fuck you too, Laff. And you know what, I still pay rent so if you need me I’ll be in my room. My room. In our apartment. If you have a problem with that, maybe you can find the door.”
The door slams violently behind Alexander, who has used so much force that the sound knocks at his head and lingers there. The sight he is met with turns his stomach to knots, his heartbeat continuing its rapid pace while sinking to his stomach. Piles of bags are cast haphazardly on the floor. His bed is still made. His calendar is still turned to December, dashes of important events written in his chicken-scratch with black pen coating its once clear surface.
It is quiet here, but not in the way he had remembered. As he moves to unzip the first bag he can hear murmured voices-John and Herc, cleaning up a dinner mess he hadn’t even known was there. He can hear the sound of the bathroom door clicking shut, the shower running at full blast. The clattering of dishes joins it, and then the TV starting up on the other side of his wall, in the living room. These are the sounds of home, of living and of being, but they are silent compared to what he had gotten used to. He longs for the sound of her bell-toned voice, laughing and singing and talking to her sisters on the phone. The commotion that had once lulled him to sleep now keeps him awake. Herc’s deep-toned voice echoes even when he is whispering. John’s bed, on the other side of the opposite wall, creaks with each movement he makes. His own bed is hard, and cold without her in it.
And in this silence, he is consumed with a sudden and overwhelming pressure in his gut. It twists itself to his throat, where a lump forms and refuses to leave. In the silence, he is privy to his own thoughts. In his thoughts, there is nothing but guilt.
He had yelled at Lafayette-at one of his oldest friends. One mention of Eliza’s name had driven him to the verbal destruction of someone who had welcomed him so openly to Columbia, and to America as a whole. Hell, they’d both went through the ringer and back together, two immigrants with imperfect families who’d just had to get away. America had been their fresh start, their second chance to get things right. Here, he was meant to make a name for himself. He’d never intended that name to be sewn between strings of French curses that felt truthful in the silence.
It had always been John and Alexander, Herc and Lafayette. Even from the beginning, when they’d decided to move out of campus housing together, they’d been split into two pairs of friends looking to split rent and drink together. Alex and Laff were their common bond, sharing a class in mathematics neither really paid attention in. They’d bonded over their status as immigrants, shared stories through their notes as they pretended to pay attention. And then, when freshman year was over, they’d found this apartment. It was cheap enough, and in good distance to the subway, and they liked each other well enough to share a kitchen and a living room. They hadn’t known this apartment and this agreement would be the catalyst that they’d built their friendship upon. They hadn’t known how close they’d grow.
They were the glue that brought this group together. This apartment was the common ground they’d grown in, and Alexander had just spoken about it as if it were nothing. The conversation plays over in his mind, unwillingly as his own behavior makes him wince. This time around, he is not focused on the insults thrown Eliza’s way. Instead, he listens to his own terse, flaming voice shooting fire at Lafayette. His stomach turns again, a reminder of what he has done. Eliza hadn’t deserved the words his friend had said about her, but he’d been just as bad. He’d lowered to a version of himself he hadn’t seen in a long time. He’d done it for Eliza, but at what cost?
The realization of his actions send him across the hall, to the door with the French flag hung crooked-It’s not crooked, your eyes are-across its width. He knocks fervently, not caring who he’ll disrupt. He’d already stirred up the night, one more disturbance would just be commonplace. Necessary-this is necessary.
Alexander watches Lafayette’s eyes darken the second he opens the door. He speaks in a voice much more gruff than his own, arms crossed over his chest in a preemptive act of defense.
“What do you want now?”
“I’m sorry.” The words come out in a slightly cracked tenor; admitting his fault has never been his strong suit, but although his attempt is feeble and the weakness almost laughable, Lafayette keeps his door open. He pokes his head out a bit further. He listens. “I just-there’s so much going on right now. So much. With myself, and with Eliza,”
The name makes the French man roll his eyes again, which sets a spark to the defense in Alexander’s heart. But this isn’t about her honor-he repeats this mantra as he bites back the insults fresh on his tongue. This is about his friendship.
“I know that I’ve been spending a lot of time with her. Most of my time, actually. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t aware of that. But there’s something going on there, with her, that’s bigger than anything I’ve ever faced before. And I know I need to be spending more time with you guys, and I know moving out was shitty on my part. This apartment does mean a lot to me, our friendship means a lot to me. But Eliza….Eliza’s it. I know she is. And what’s going on with her isn’t a joke. It’s sucked so much from our relationship, and from herself, and from me. I know I’m acting different. I know I need to come back to you guys. But this is getting serious and I just don’t know what to do.”
It takes a moment for Lafayette to let the words sink in; one last plea from the guy from Nevis, the fellow immigrant with flyaway hair and bag-adorned eyes. His friend is wrapped in good intentions, always good. But the shift in focus from himself to Eliza hadn’t gone unnoticed, and it hurt to hear the softness of his words and the love he poured from his heart and his shining eyes into each syllable he spoke about her. Alexander is a mirror of a time remembered well by Lafayette, one he’d almost rather forget. It hits him with such force that he sighs, holding his hand behind his neck.
“You know, it’s been five years since I left France-since Marie.”
“Five years?”
“Sometimes, it feels like less. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been here forever. But there are days I see a girl with blonde hair, or a jean jacket like she always used to wear, and I,” He pauses for a moment, his once stormy eyes lightening with a distant memory Alexander wishes he could see. He can feel it, the way Lafayette draws in a long and shaky breath. He clasps his hands together, fingers bumping against each other as he stays in his far-off world. “I miss her. And then, I wish that things had been different. Seeing you with Eliza…I don’t want you to live what I’m living. We’re un dans le meme, cursed with our hearts and our stubbornness and our love for things that shouldn’t belong to us. I never wanted you to get hurt.”
“Okay.”
“I shouldn’t have judged her so harshly, even based on my own account. I’m sorry, Alex.”
“Just-just don’t treat her like shit, alright? She’s a good person, better than anybody I’ve ever known.”
“I won’t, you have my word. And if you need help with any of this, any time…”
“I know.” Alexander smiles then, light and airy as exhaustion finally consumes him. He nods once, slowly, before turning on his heel. When he gets to his door across the hall he turns, one last thought seeping from his lips as his hand connects with the doorknob. “If you need to talk-about her,”
Lafayette shakes his head, a solemn smile playing at the corners of his lips. There is a hopelessness within his eyes that is sent across the hallway, in the air around them, as a remnant of what could have been. Just when Alexander thinks he’s about to share his thoughts Lafayette waves, a foot back in his own doorway.
“Goodnight, Alex.”
“Goodnight, Laff.”
#hamliza#hamilton#mine: swts#things that are hard to write: conflict and drama and Alex#things in this chapter: conflict and drama and Alex#so just bare with me I'm much better at writing Eliza#sorry everyone I try#things I love: backstory#so sorry bout that too
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Do you have any idea how fucking HARD life is like this though? Sure you have an INT of 20, but you're level capped to using shitty level 1 equipment. Do you know how hard it is being a literal fucking genius in American public schools?
I've been yelled at for motherfucking READING. Banned from just about every competition that wasnt sport related because admins were convinced I cheated or didn't do the work myself. CHEATING was actually more difficult than just doing the damn test.
I lost track of how many classes I just stopped doing any work at all but still got a decent grade on tests alone.
Every year the same damn argument with teachers over their shit reading list: nope read that, and that and like 20 other books on this list and the rest are insulting to my intelligence they're that bad. One year I got forced to read Goosebumps, no way out of it. Keep in mind I was reading a thesis on the political messages in LOTR, Thomas Hardy, Azimov, Dumas, Shakespeare, for motherfucking FUN. In 5th grade. We had an hour of mandatory reading time that day. I handed the book back saying "ok I'm done, what next" and at that age I hadn't quite gotten it yet that being SMART was a BAD THING. I got accused of lying, trying to get out of the work, pulled into the principal's office. Again.
8th grade I slammed a stack of 1000+ page novels on my English teachers desk and said I would write a 20 page paper on any one of these that I had checked out from the library that day, but I categorically refused to read any of the crap on their mandatory reading list. Dumas, Arthur C Clarke, Doyle, etc. She refused. I had to tell her to just put in a zero for reading for me since I wasnt reading the fucking babysitters club, goosebumps, or any of the other mindless dimestore crap on her list. Her: well how about Catcher in the Rye? Me: read it. 4 times. 3 years ago. And was bored. Sure, great book, but bored. No thanks.
By 8th grade I had learned to just stop trying. I coasted through school on minimal effort, because bothering to put in effort just got me in trouble. Could I skip a couple grades? Nope I was told I was 'too small and wouldnt fit in'. Bitch I was 4 inches and 40 lbs bigger than anyone else in my class! Test off the fuckin chart, nope cant move up. Why? Oh your grades aren't good enough. Ever stop to think that they stuck because I'm bored out of my fucking mind?
I got told I couldn't read an encyclopedia for reading time because it "wasnt educational". Like wut?
Bottom line is our society rewards mediocrity and punishes excellence. So I multiclassed and got good at everything. Sure my grades sucked, but at least I wasnt bored to death anymore.
Yeah my grades sucked because I was being killed by average people. They ducked so bad I dropped out my junior year of high school. Failed half my sophomore classes. Came back 4 months into senior year. My counselor told me it literally wasnt possible to get enough credits to graduate. By then I was old enough to do shit MY WAY, so I pulled a Hermione, went to 3 schools simultaneously doing things I actually WANTED to learn, pulled my GPA from a 1.2 to a 3.6 and graduated with 12 more credits than I needed. In 6 fucking months.
So yeah dont piss off a prodigy, because when they FINALLY get access to a decent level of equipment they gonna stomp your ass into the ground and feel zero remorse because they've spent a lifetime learning to not give a single fuck about anyone else, because everyone has fucked them over forever.
Being a child prodigy is like starting an RPG and putting all your starting points into a single stat.
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227's™ Facebook Fries!¡' (aka YouTube Chili' NBA) #Nike'Spicy'Tunes Premier League Trending News! Kanye Chili' West banned from Spicy' radio station over recent comments #Walmart'Spicy'Tunes #Nike'Spicy'Tunes Spicy' NBA Mix!
A Detroit radio station said it will ban Kanye West's music over controversial comments the rapper made earlier this week that slavery “was a choice.” Hosts Shay Shay and BiGG of 105.1 the Morning Bounce made the announcement Thursday on Facebook with the hashtag “Mute Kanye.” “Kanye has gone too far” with his latest comments, they said. They wrote that they are refusing to give him a platform,” according to New York Post. "We don't want to hear Kanye's music, we don't want to play Kanye on our show, we don't want to talk about Kanye anymore,” the post read. “So we are taking a stand and we aren't playing his music anymore; we just are refusing to give him a platform." The ban will be for the entire hip-hop station and will include tracks that West produced or is featured in as well, the Detroit Free Press reported. West faced swift backlash following an interview with TMZ on Tuesday, where he said "when you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years?! That sounds like a choice." The music mogul took to Twitter shortly after to try and walk back his comments and compared himself to both Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman. “If this was 148 years ago I would have been more like Harriet or Nat," West tweeted, before clarifying the reason he “brought up the 400 years point is that we can’t be mentally imprisoned for another 400 years. We need free thought now. Even the statement was an example of free thought…It was just an idea.” The two morning DJs didn’t announce how long the ban will last, and left it open to a “gut feeling.” “That’s what it is right now. We need a break,” Shay Shay, told the paper. “I think it’s a gut feeling of when we’ll be able to feel comfortable playing it again when we’ll want to hear it again, and more importantly, when will our listeners want to hear it again.” West was banned from a Hot 103.5 in Sacramento in 2016 after he attacked radio stations and fellow artists during a concert for his Saint Pablo Tour, USA Today reported. https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/music/kanye-west-banned-from-radio-station-over-recent-comments/ar-AAwIPmh
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Fighting On.
On September 3, 2016, USC lost to Alabama by 46 points.
By no means should they have made it to the Rose Bowl 4 months later.
On January 2, 2017, I embarked on the day trip from hell to Los Angeles.
By no means should I have made it to the Rose Bowl 14 hours later.
About two and a half weeks ago I asked my boss for a personal day on January 2nd. I’d come down with a case of the “I’m 24 and On The Verge Of A Quarter Life Crisis” blues and was fortunate enough for Santa Claus to FedEx me a pair of Rose Bowl tickets. OK FINE, Santa Claus is my dad. Karl came up clutch.
Chris and I were both given the day off. In our industry this is like a pot of flippin’ gold, so bottom line, it better be worth it.
My mom was going, too. She’d planned to go from the moment USC made it in even though she was recovering from extensive surgery that she’d had the week after Thanksgiving. But, if you’ve met Sharon, God forbid you tell her she can’t go to a college sporting event she’s planning to attend. I hadn’t seen her since the surgery, and suddenly seeing USC in the Rose Bowl with my mom became the most important thing to me in the whole wide world.
She had two tickets and no one to go with. I sent a text to two of my friends asking if either needed a ticket.
My friend Janet responded yes instantly; that she’d been on StubHub that very minute looking for a ticket. She won the lottery. Sorry, Paige.
Janet and I have had some great memories at the Rose Bowl. We had worked the 100th Rose Bowl and final BCS National Championship Game (RIP, BCS) together when we were students at USC. Then there was the time she got us kicked out of the Beyonce/Jay-Z concert. Ask her about it! It’s her favorite story to tell!
Alright, back to business.
With this trip on the horizon, I had my groove back. It was the kick in the pants I needed to head into 2017 with some pep in my step.
So, on January 2nd, I trotted into the Memphis airport humming “Tusk” and holding up a “Fight On!” while Sia’s “The Greatest” blared from the airport speakers.
“Don't give up, I won't give up
Don't give up, no no no….”
Chris brought his GoPro and said, “Oh this song will be perfect for the video I will put together of the trip!”
Ha…haha….hahahaha….
Our flight was scheduled to leave Memphis at 6 a.m. I had chosen for us to fly through Houston instead of Denver because I’m a genius and didn’t want snow to cripple my great day.
I’m a moron. The apocalypse hit Houston.
“Hi folks…”
Why do all pilots use the word ‘folks….’
“…the Houston airport has closed off all incoming and outgoing flights because of thunderstorms. It should only be a 30 minute delay or so. We’ll keep you posted.”
We only had an hour to make our connection so my nerves started pumpin’ real hard.
Chris assured me we’d be alright. The flight attendant assured me we’d be alright. We finally took off, and I got a text from my dad saying our flight from Houston to LAX was delayed, too, and that we should have no problem making our connection.
I breathed. I slept. I smiled.
“Hey there folks!”
I jolted from a deep, neck-scrunched-against-the-window sleep.
Folks…the word of death….
“I’ve got some more bad news. We are in a holding pattern as the Houston airport is closed again. We’re circling around Louisiana but we’re going to run out of fuel in about 45 minutes, so if it’s not open by then we’ll have to divert.”
The clock said 8:25. Our flight to LAX had been rescheduled to take off at 9:15.
I ate not one, but two, waffle cookies the flight attendant gave me. No New Year’s resolution diet could exist in a time like this.
At 9:22 we were diverted to San Antonio, TX. It was 60 degrees and sunny.
There was a single flight from San Antonio to LAX.
It was overbooked.
With the help of Karl, we were rescheduled onto another flight out of Houston, this one leaving at 10:45 and getting us to LAX at 12:30 p.m.
I looked out the plane window. We were surrounded by eight other airplanes, all waiting for fuel.
“It should only take about 20 minutes!” The words of our pilot. No “folks” included. I should’ve seen this as a sign that he was a Lying-Mc-Liar-Pants.
We waited in line for fuel, which turned into waiting in line for an open runway to take off to Houston which was now perfectly sunny and beautiful and wtf weather why you gotta be like that.
The clock ticked 10:25 as the wheels went up.
Travel agent Karl informed us we could get on the standby list for an 11:45 flight that landed at 1:30 p.m. PST. At this point, I didn’t care if we made kickoff, I just wanted to get there by half time.
In what should be investigated as the longest flight ever between San Antonio and Houston, we landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport at 11:30 a.m.
We were at Gate C8. The mystical 11:45 flight (which was - shocking! - rumored to be delayed) was at C46.
Chris took off in a sprint.
I ran like the gazelle I’ve always aspired to be.
Just kidding, I huffed and I puffed and my Uggs started to give me blisters and at some point I took my sweater off and tied it around my waste like a 90’s mom at Disneyland and somehow those two waffle cookies didn’t end up on the ground in front of me. Saying “Diet starts back up, Monday!” for the last four weeks was really biting me in the ass.
Let’ go back to Sia’s “The Greatest”:
“Uh-oh, runnin' out of breath, but I
Oh, I, I got stamina
Uh-oh, running now, I close my eyes
Well, oh, I got stamina…”
We reached the gate. The plane had already been closed. No delay, no magic.
We just laughed.
At this point the only chance we had was to reroute to Orange County and then drive to Pasadena. The flight would land at 2:35.
This is the part where I remind everyone that kickoff was at 2:00.
Well, we can make the second half!
I calculated that if we landed at 2:35 we could be in a car by 2:40 and at the Rose Bowl by 3:40. We could make it by the 3rd quarter.
“Well we can hope for the world’s longest game and a USC 4th quarter comeback! Maybe some overtimes, too!” I joked.
Boarding was set to begin at 12:08. At 12:20 we were still waiting.
“Just an update everyone, the flight attendants for this flight were coming from an international flight and they’re now stuck in Customs, so we can’t do anything until they make it through.”
You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.
I still didn’t lose it! I still didn’t cry!
When we were still sitting on the runway at 1:35, nearly an hour after our scheduled departure, that’s when I cried.
But, what can you do?
The only thing that went right at that point was that this flight had DirectTV which meant I was going to watch kickoff from the sky. So technically, I had the coolest seat of all. THE SKY!!!!
(Literally trying to keep that whole return of “Look On The Bright Side Jess!” at the forefront here).
The flight attendant gave me a free Heineken.
USC and Penn State decided to throw me a bone in the form of a bajillion pass plays followed by: Touchdown. Review. Touchdown. Review. The clock ticked slowly.
We made up some time in the air and landed in the OC at 3:04 on the dot. The 1st quarter had just ended.
Oh my lord, we have a chance.
This is where you meet our new bff, Moe. Moe was the driver of the car picking us up. He waited at baggage claim with one of those signs that said “J. Benson” and had a luggage cart waiting.
Chris and I sprinted towards him.
“Hello, are you Jessica? I’m driver, M...”
“LET’S GO MOE!”
“Where is your luggage?”
“WE DON’T HAVE ANY!”
We traveled with a single backpack filled with our toothbrushes, toiletries, a pair of yoga pants if I decided to take a 6 a.m. SoulCycle class before our flight out the next day (spoiler alert: this was not happening), my small purse, Chris’s wallet and a brush. We’d planned to drop it off at the hotel when we landed at, oh I don’t know, 10:45 a.m. like we were supposed to, but now it was totally expendable. We had every intention of transporting our things into one of those game-friendly plastic bags (backpacks not allowed in the stadium) and ditching the backpack in the Rose Bowl parking lot.
Moe hustled with us to the car. Moe is a baller.
What if I told you…there was a day where there was zero traffic between Orange County and Pasadena? We seemed to fly down the 405 to the 605 to the 5 to the 110. We made it in 53 minutes. I just looked at how long it would be estimated to take right now. The answer is 1 hour and 47 minutes.
But like, you still didn’t think we were in the clear right? Because if you did you have not been paying attention.
The Rowl Bowl didn’t allow passenger drop off. The closest we could get was about a mile out.
I gave Moe a giant hug.
And again, we ran.
And again…why had I taken a 4-week hiatus from the Kayla Itsines workout plan?
We got to the gate closest to our seats, Gate G.
“Do you have any plastic bags?” we managed to choke out between coughs.
“No, try Gate A.”
So we ran again.
“Do you have any plastic bags?”
“No, we’re out. You’ll have to check your bag at Gate C.”
At that point, we’d be running around almost half the stadium.
“Don’t be a quitter!” Chris yelled at me.
“But I’m going to throw up!” I screamed back.
This is love.
We checked our bag. Lost in this moment was my happiness to not have to part with my backpack. We entered at Gate C. We had to walk all the way back to the Gate G area to get to our entrance tunnel.
We walked up the stairs right after Penn State scored in the opening minutes of the 3rd quarter.
I saw my mom. I saw Janet. Instant happiness washed over me. They greeted us with hugs and at that point more importantly, beers. The girl in the seats next to us had gone to one of the high schools in my hometown of Highlands Ranch, CO. Everything seemed to be falling into place perfectly.
We proceeded to watch Penn State score 28 points in the 3rd quarter.
And then we proceeded to watch a damn miracle.
I can’t describe the happiness I felt as Ronald Jones II ran it into the end zone wearing Joe McKnight’s No. 4 jersey to get USC back within a touchdown.
I can’t put into words what it was like to watch a freshman quarterback, Sam Darnold, throw his 5th touchdown pass to tie the game with 1 minute and 20 seconds left on the clock.
People joke that I went to USC during the worst four years of football. But everything - from the sanctions to Kiffin being left on an LAX tarmac to Sark- all became so worth it when Matt Boermeester nailed a 46-yard field goal to win the Rose Bowl.
As I stood watching USC win the Rose Bowl with my mom, my boyfriend and two of my best friends all I could think was, “Holy hell this day went from being one of the absolute worst to the absolute best.”
And couldn’t we all use that reminder as we enter the New Year? Pick a cliche, any cliche, but often times the best things come just after we think things can’t get any worse.
From USC football fighting its way back into the national spotlight; to 14 hours of travel that included 3 flights, 6 potential missed connections, 2 diversions, an hour car ride and a 2 mile run that landed me in the Penn State section at the Rose Bowl...you just cannot ever give up.
Because if you do, you might miss the part where the impossible transforms into one of life’s greatest moments.
After all, is that not what it means to “Fight On”?
As we walked down the steps of the Rose Bowl, no joke, Sia’s “The Greatest” played in the background.
“I'm free to be the greatest, I'm alive
I'm free to be the greatest here tonight, the greatest
The greatest, the greatest alive
The greatest, the greatest alive…”
The day was perfect.
The next day our flight to Denver was delayed 4 hours, we missed all connecting flights to Memphis and got stuck at the airport for the night. It was 18 degrees, we had no extra clothes and didn’t make it home until 2 p.m. on Wednesday, January 4th.
Again, it was perfect. And most of all, it was so worth it.
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Chungus: The War Chapter 1: The Situation
There was dead silence in the war room. Sitting around the table were various military generals and men in suits, all of which were tugging at their collars nervously. Projected on the wall was a live graph, being updated with the data as they received it. The room had no lighting aside from the projection, but it was more than enough to see the reactions and looks of all present. Sweat was pouring down their necks and they were quite obviously spooked. Hushed whispers echo throughout the war room chamber, as men talk to each other about pulling their stocks and running away. The attitude of the room was dread.
Except for one man. He sat at the end of the table, hands put together in front of his face. Dressed in a simple light blue suit, he watched the graph numbers rise with no visible emotion. His bald head did not shine with sweat, and his rough hands did not shake. He did not pull at the stray strings of his suit, nor did he tap his leather shoes. He was still, and calm. His emerald eyes scanned the graph, as they have since it was turned on.
“Chungus Death and Infection Numbers”, the graph read. So far thousands have fallen either dead or to the chungus turning infection. Thousands that will never walk among us, that is as a human. This man put this graph up here to make a point.
A point that he and his organization were needed. That he was a “nessceary expense”. His eyes twitched at that sentence, the one hed read over and over again in the finance report. They were considering cutting his foundation out from the budget. Yet he was so lucky that the Infection suddenly spurred. So lucky, some had started suspecting him. However, this was far from what he wanted.
He stands up from his chair, making the only noise in the room. A dozen heads turn to look his direction. The man was not a tall individual, but he commanded the room. “Gentlemen,” he spoke,” I am Elmer Fudd. I am the Co-Lead of the foundation you were considering cutting from the budget. What you are seeing there is a current update of lives lost to the Chungus Invasion and Infection. We - “
“IMPOSSIBLE!” one of the generals shouts as they stand from their seat.”The Chungus were gone extinct over 40 years ago! The Yosemite Family took out the Mother Chungus, there cannot be any more of them!” Elmer Fudd looked over the general who hopped up, with a look that conveyed disgust. “Yet here we are, General. So I suggest you take your seat and listen to how we have these beasts back again, instead of interrupting me and wasting my time and dozens of lives.” The General sat back down, a shameful red taking his face over.
“As I was saying,” Elmer began again,” We have tracked the source of the Infection to Baghdad. It is suspected that this bread of Chungus is lab-grown, as the result of an experiment by one Vladimir Chungus.” An incredulous look overtook many of the people present when they heard the name. “Yes, yes it is a humorous name for the given circumstance but we must get back on track. Vladimir Chungus is a former Russian Biological Engineer.” Upon saying this, the projection was changed to a picture of Vladimir Chungus. He was a bald, unshaven mess. His beard trailed to his chest and he had crazy brown eyes with heavy bags on them. “He was the lead researcher in Artificial Biological Life. He was playing God, so to speak.” A bunch of whispers entered the room once again before Elmer coughed to get the attention. He was presumed dead when his home in Chechnya was bombed in 2006 as part of a Top Secret Operation during the Checnean War, and his body was never found. However, this does not appear to be the case.” The projection changes to satellite images zoomed in on a compound in the middle of a small town settled in the mountains. “We believe this to be the home of Vladimir, who was seen entering it on December 19th of 2011. He has not been seen exiting it, but reports of those who live in the town have met him during parties he has thrown. Now, his connection to the Chungus Virus currently infecting the Southern US and Central Middle-East is as follows.”
The projection changes again to numerous pictures of trucks and creatures in cages. “These trucks were seen driving into the compound and loading several covered cages, which witness reports note as being ‘moving and making snarling noises’. These same trucks were later found in a back alley of Baghdad, with all the cages broken and several men dead.” The projection changes to the scene, with many of the suits in the room making gagging noises.
The image shown was 4 men dressed in black private security uniforms, laying on the floor torn to shreds. Their chests were torn open, and one looks like it was thrown against a wall of the alley. Three cages are shown, each I varying degrees of destruction and conditions. One of the three trucks there was on its side, smoke trailing from its engine.
“The cages were 8 feet tall, by a floor area of 12 ft. Evidence covered at the scene was one broken tooth and several shredded grey hairs. Since January 7th of this year, abductions in Baghdad grew exponentially, until 29% of the city’s population was unaccounted for. No one knew what was going on until February 12th, when we caught this on video.” The projection changes to a video of a man approaching a door that is slightly ajar. There is a tearing and snarling noise coming from the room and a trail of blood leading into it. The man is seen opening the door and then screaming and running, dropping the phone he was recording on int he process. In doing so, the camera was pointing right into the room, were illuminated by the moonlight was a 7 foot tall and large animal holding a goat with its hands. It has two very large ears and bright yellow eyes, and in its mouth were two huge white fangs.
“This is a Chungus. It is very different from the previous Chungus we know about, differing in an extra 3 feet in height and several more pounds of muscle.” Elmer straightens his tie, coughing. Seeing that video brought back bad memories, no matter how many times he watched it or tried to suppress those memories. The blood that was poured. “Excuse me. This wave of Chungus is different, but there is one main issue that has made this extremely important.” Elmer Fudd reaches under the table and takes out a jar, its contents looking like applesauce. “ It can infect humans with spores from an as-yet-unknown source, and once infected, humans insides slowly gooify before reforming in a Chungus. The Chungus then parasitically eats its way out of the host and begins growing before wrecking havoc.” Elmer Fudd opens the jar and pours it out on the table. Its contents spill everywhere, the goop seeping onto the floor. The smell envelops the room, smelling of rotten meat. One of the generals vomits. Laying in the middle of the table is a small shriveled version of what was shown on screen.
“This is what we are up against. I await my funding.” Elmer Fudd then stands up, straightens his tie, then leaves the room.
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Blow it for Burrow—Tank for Tua—Hurl for Herbert
In a battle against the Cleveland Browns two weeks ago, the Denver Broncos (3-6) won the game but lost ground in the race to secure a top pick in next year’s NFL Draft. But with a rookie quarterback and facing a difficult remaining schedule, look for Denver to battle it out with the Miami Dolphins, Cincinnati Bengals, and others at the bottom of the league for the potential top prize.
Whether Denver goes winless the rest of the season and manages to secure the top pick or wins a game or two and finishes with a top-ten selection, here is how Denver’s draft will go, no matter where they land.
First Pick – Joe Burrow QB/LSU The good news is if the Broncos end up with the first overall pick in the 2020 NFL draft, their quarterback issue will be taken care of with the addition of Burrow. The Ohio State transfer is the Heisman favorite with his 33 TDs and only 4 INTs. Burrow’s size, speed, accuracy, and big game performance over Alabama will be too much for Elway to pass on. The bad news is that if Denver ends up in this spot, the season has gone horrifically wrong.
Second Pick – Tua Tagovailoa QB/Alabama A possible scenario is that the Ohio product Burrow goes first overall to the Cincinnati Bengals (0-9), and Denver ends up with the second pick in the draft as Washington (1-8) and Miami (2-7) accidentally win more games than the Broncos. Tagovailoa (31 TDs/3 INTs) would have easily been the number one pick in the draft in injuries weren’t a concern. Elway would have no choice, despite of the injuries, to select Tua at number two.
Third Pick – Andrew Thomas OL/Georgia The reality is that Tagovailoa is probably still available at spot number three as Cincinnati takes Burrow, and the Washington Redskins, who drafted quarterback Dwayne Haskins with 10th overall pick last year, take Ohio State DE standout Chase Young. But assuming both quarterbacks are gone, look for Elway to finally address the offensive line despite some decent quarterbacks still in play.
Fourth Pick – Chase Young DE/Ohio State The perfect storm for Denver at pick number four is that Cincy takes Burrow, Miami takes Tagovailoa, Washington takes Young, and Denver gets the top offensive lineman in the draft in Thomas. But if Washington decides to go offensive lineman instead, the Broncos will be in a “Bradley Chubb” situation again of having to select Young if he happens to drop to four. Selecting Young would allow Denver to shop Von Miller, and potentially gather draft picks and cap space for the future.
Fifth Pick – Justin Herbert QB/Oregon With the four players named above all gone and a few teams looking to jump in to grab their next franchise quarterback, Elway rolls the dice on Herbert at pick number five. Herbert has been overshadowed by Burrow and Tagovailoa, but at 6’6 and with 24 TDs and only 2 INTs, Herbert is the perfect Elway…next try.
Sixth Pick – Jeff Okudah CB/Ohio State It’s very possible that a team moves up in a trade with the Arizona Cardinals, Washington Redskins, or NY Giants in order to get the third best QB available. That would leave Denver with a best-player-available situation and a team can never have enough cornerbacks. With Chris Harris Jr. in question, Bryce Callahan often-injured, and a strategy of defensive first, Okudah would fit nicely here.
Seventh Pick – Jerry Jeudy WR/Alabama Elway is so excited at the notion of the talented Jeudy teaming up with Courtland Sutton that he completely forgets that he has no quarterback to throw them the ball, or offensive line to provide enough time for them to get open. But in typical Elway fashion, he’ll figure that out later.
Eighth Pick – Tristan Wires OL/Iowa The second best offensive lineman in the draft would provide support to Dalton Risner and provide an answer to 40% of Denver’s offensive line problems.
Ninth Pick – Derrick Brown DL/Auburn A Vic Fangio defensive pick. A run-stopper that can push back the offensive line, allowing Miller and Chubb a chance to do their thing.
Tenth Pick – Jordan Love QB/Utah State Can’t you just see it: too high a spot for the next available offensive lineman and desperate for a quarterback, Elway doubles-down on his inability to scout quarterback talent by drafting the athletically gifted but often struggling (11 TDs/12 INTs) QB out of the mountain west.
For what it’s worth, with as many as six quarterbacks projected to be drafted in the first round, if the Denver Broncos decide to wait until 2021 and target Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence, they may be the only team left on the board in need of a quarterback. Lose for Lawrence? Win never for Trevor? Fail bigtime for Sunshine? Risky. But at least it’s a plan.
Images via nypost.com, theadvocate.com, honolulustaradvertiser.com, 247sports.com, cbssports.com, mountainwestwire.com, democraticunderground.com
from Blog https://ondenver.com/blow-it-for-burrow-tank-for-tua-hurl-for-herbert/
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Home Automation - From Dream to Reality
New Post has been published on http://planet-geek.com/2019/03/23/home-automation/home-automation-from-dream-to-reality/
Home Automation - From Dream to Reality
The whole Home Automation craze has been around for years. From the first X10 devices in the 70s and 80s, all the way through wifi enabled refrigerators, the technology to link devices and services in the home has marched onward. I certainly am not immune to the draw of a ‘smart home’, where all my devices are interconnected and can communicate with each other (and I can communicate with them!), but up until recently, the tech for this has been clunky and unimaginative. Sure you could have a big multibutton wired box on your coffee table that could turn on the kitchen lights, but that’s not particularly convenient.
beepzorp
No, the big revolution came when always-on, integrated voice controlled devices like Amazon’s Echo Dot and the Google Home successfully bridged the human / computer interface with easy to use voice commands that didn’t require you to speak like Robbie the Robot. With natural language interfaces available 24/7, without requiring physical button pushing or training, home automation could start to move into the “this makes things easier” territory.
I’ve naturally been attracted to this sort of integration. Having a whole-house ‘personality’ that I could talk to anytime, anywhere, without it being intrusive or burdensome was a big attraction.
How I Did It
The first step to this process was getting Amazon Echo devices in all the rooms. This turned out to be less of a challenge than I expected. Echo Dots are going for $40 and are a decent starting point. I was setting up for the 4 rooms in my house, so this was easy (with a full Echo in the living room for good ambient music and general use.
Even before I started setting up the next stage of automation, we found having a House Bot to be incredibly convenient. Having an Echo in every room, you get very comfortable having basically any answer to any question available just by asking. “Alexa, What’s the capital of Wisconsin?”, etc etc.
But more than that, we use the always-available service for a lot of other things:
Shopping lists – being in the kitchen and realizing we’re almost out of sugar “Alexa, add Sugar to the shopping list” (“I’ve added sugar to your shopping list.”) – when one of us is at the supermarket, we can look at the current list on our phone and see what’s needed, marking things off as we get them.
Timers – This one was a little surprising. “Alexa, set a timer for 10 minutes.” “I’ve set a timer for 10 minute, starting now.” – this is a great reminder service for anything from something in the oven to remembering to go leave to go pick up your kid.
Intercom – because we have Echos in every room, including the kids room, it’s nice to be able to use it as an intercom. “Alexa, Drop in on the kids room” (bdoink) “Hey, what do you want for dinner?”
Music – I have our accounts linked to Spotify, which means I basically have access to all the music in the world, as well as many curated playlists. A lot of times I’ll come down in the morning for coffee, and put on some music with “Alexa, play quiet classical music” – and a nice mix of quiet music will start playing.
Background sounds – We have an active house and neighborhood. Sometimes a nap is needed, and perhaps the general churn of kids playing and doors closing can make that difficult. Asking Alexa to play quiet sounds helps make napping easier. “Alexa, play ocean sounds” is a great way to set some soothing sounds to take a nap to.
Okay, all this is great, but what about the other automation stuff? The lights! What about the lights?
Home automation is frequently associated with ‘turning the lights on and off’. I wanted to be able to do this via Alexa, as well as have some automatic things happen (for instance, the stair lights turn on when you get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night). To do this, you need lightswitches and sensors that can be linked together and controlled
There’s a lot of technologies to do this. With LED lightbulbs replacing CF bulbs (for good reason), zillions of companies started making WiFi enabled lightbulbs. I’ll be honest, these things seem sketchy AF. This is a fully enabled wifi computer in a lightbulb socket in your house, on your local network. Most people don’t know what those devices are doing, and what external services they’re communicating with. There’s a school of thought that says “Who cares? It’s just a lightbulb!” – but that’s not the point. That’s not a lightbulb, it’s a computer. It’s on your local wireless network in your house. Which means it has localized access to all the devices on your network at home. That nice firewall / router you have? It’s just been bypassed.
Now, many could argue that this is already happening, with the smart devices like the Echos and other things in the house, which are in regular communication with servers on the internet. And they’d be right – there’s communication happening there that I’m not in 100% control of. But, with a hefty dose of salt, I honestly trust Amazon and Google a lot more than a Chinese company making a $19 Wifi enabled lightbulb that asks me to install an Android app to control the light. Do I blindly trust Amazon and Google? Heck no! But I know a lot of very smart people are analyzing what the Echos and the Google devices are doing. There’s far more transparency there than these fly by night “Smart Device” manufacturers on the net.
Building out the Hub and Devices
Right. Enough of that. Let’s get down to how I built out my network.
First of all, if you’re not going to use wifi, you need to pick another wireless protocol. There’s several to choose from, I ended up choosing Zwave. This is a very common protocol, and has many devices and hubs supporting it. When I started this project 2+ years ago, Zwave devices tended to be on the pricy side, but the costs have been steadily dropping.
Once you’ve selected a protocol, you’ll need a hub. A hub does all the communication with the devices, and presents that communication to whatever interface you’d like to use. In my case, I wanted a dozen or two devices, and I wanted to talk to them via Alexa as well as web and mobile apps. This is a pretty normal ask, nothing too fancy. I ended up buying a Vera Plus hub. It was relatively inexpensive (at the time, compared to others), had a decent developer community, and I had several friends at MakeIt Labs who were using them, so I had a place to ask questions.
For my initial setup, I also bought 2 GoControl LB60Z-1 LED Bulbs. At the time they were about $35 each.
The initial setup was pretty easy. I was able to get the bulbs synced with the hub, and I was able to get the hub communicating with Alexa (though this turned out to be something of a challenge, since the integration was still in beta. I hear that the Alexa integration is much smoother now).
At this point, I had a system that would allow me to control the lights in our living room just by speaking out loud “Alexa, living room lights on please” or, if it was a movie night and we wanted subdued lighting, “Alexa, living room lights to ten percent please”.
A side note here. “Dave, why are you saying ‘please’ to a computer?” – it’s a good question. It turns out, when you’re speaking out loud in an aggressive short tone, even to a computer, it makes the entire environment around you… less comfortable. Teaching a 10 year old that it’s okay to yell “ALEXA, LIVING ROOM LIGHTS ON” puts everyone no edge. But if you’re polite, and treat all communication with respect, it changes the tone of communication. It helps that you can even thank the bot after doing something. “Alexa, bedroom lights off.” “Okay!” (lights dim) “Thanks!” “You bet!”
Now that the control hub was in place, it was time to expand the network. I added several Z-Wave motion sensors, a Fibaro RGB Led Controller, and a couple more bulbs. In the end, my network consisted of:
8 Zwave LED lightbulbs
3 motion detectors
1 LED controller and LED strip
1 hub
4 Alexa devices
This all… surprisingly… worked really well! Having the lights in each room voice controllable was a huge win. I don’t like centralized lighting in a room. I’d rather have 4 lamps around the edges of a space than have one big light. Tying all the lights together in one ‘scene’ where they can all be turned on, off, or dimmed with one command was awesome. This setup ran for almost 2 years.
After it was well established and the family had gotten very comfortable with having a true ‘home automation’ setup, I started to have some problems.
The Vera Plus hub controller is, well, slow. It could take 5-10 seconds for a device to respond to commands, and occasionally the hub would disconnect from Alexa. The UI on the device was PAINFULLY outdated. It had the look and feel of something written by an intern 10 years ago, and they’ve been just maintaining / adding screens / updating forms on it since then, with no one willing to tackle replacing the UI with something more modern and less clunky. It all “worked”, but it was no fun to fiddle with. I also was interested in doing more integration. I wanted to have a ‘smart lightswitch’ setup where I could see the status of all the lights, and all the motion sensors, on a tablet on the wall. This wasn’t that idle a need – our houses are very tightly insulated. When someone comes in the front door, you can feel the pressure change in the air int he house, but it’s subtle. I wanted to be able to look up and see if someone had just come in the door downstairs, particularly if I was in the attic.
It was time to look at upgrades.
In the 2+ years I had been building this network, the technology had advanced, and there were many new offerings. The Google and Alex integrations had improved, and new devices were on the market. I started taking a good long look at the Samsung Smartthings Hub. I had heard about SmartThings, but had also heard the tools were not mature yet, and there were some serious concerns about privacy and stability. The third generation hub however was looking very nice, and many of the ‘mysteries’ about how these devices were communicating were being cleared up. I started watching the SmartThings subreddit and it looked like people were doing some good work, so I took the plunge and bought the hub.
I won’t bore you with all the details of setting up the new hub and migrating the devices. The short version is “it happened”. There were naturally bumps (like, in order to migrate any Zwave device that’s already been set up to a new hub, you have to basically tell the device and the hub to deregister the old connection before you add the new one. This is accomplished via something called Z-Wave Device Exclusion, which seems counterintuitive, but it let me attach the devices to the new hub once I figured that out.
The real pleasant surprise was that Samsung provides an “IDE” for working with Smartthings. It’s a very well designed UI that lets you go in and update, modify, browse, and configure every device attached to the system. This includes adding new functionality through community-written drivers and debugging connectivity issues. This IDE was a breath of fresh air compared to what I was working with on the Vera. I felt that Samsung understood that people doing Home Automation really want full control over the devices and the tools, without going nuts with hacky approaches to the system.
Once the Smartthings hub was up and running smoothly, I wanted to go to my next project, which is having a ‘smart display’ showing the light and motion detector status.
A while back, I picked up a handful of Amazon Fire HD 7″ tablets and modified them to be able to run the google Play store. I pulled out one of the tablets, charged it, got the software on it all the way up to date, and installed ActionTiles on it. ActionTiles is sort of the ‘standard’ tablet display application for people using SmartThings devices. While not particularly elegant or fancy, it provides a clean, simpl touch interface to all the devices on your network. Setting it up and configuring it was pretty easy, and after tinkering with the layout a bit, I mounted the tablet in one of of the clamp brackets and set it over my desk. I at last had a live display of my device network that would notify me if the door sensors tripped while I was safely ensconced in my office. Victory!
This has been running now for a day or two, and I’m super-happy with the results. I’m sure I’ll find things that need tuning and updating, but so far, the entire project has been a win. I have several ideas about the next steps, but that’ll have to wait for anther day.
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Fog, mistakes, and McNabb: Eagles have a mixed postseason history in Chicago
In 1988, the Eagles had just beaten the woeful Dallas Cowboys in the final week of the season and the New York Jets had defeated the Giants to help them win the NFC East and earn their first postseason appearance in seven years. Thirty years later, much the same thing happened, with the Eagles demolishing the Washington Redskins last Sunday and the Chicago Bears defeating of the Minnesota Vikings on the last week of the season to give Philadelphia the NFC’s final playoff berth.
Both 30 years ago and last Sunday, the Eagles welcome their good fortune with a first-round postseason match-up in the Windy City against the Bears. Only this time around, a mere seven days after the Chicago did them a solid to help them get into the postseason, the Birds will look to return the favor by rudely ousting them from the tournament.
Life can be ironic and cruel, kids.
The Eagles have played at Soldier Field in the playoffs two times previously, having lost in the infamous and infuriating Fog Bowl Game in ‘88, and then again in 2001, when Donovan McNabb put his stamp on the Andy Reid-era Eagles. Let’s take a look back at those two match-ups as Doug Pederson and the gang get ready for the wild card match-up in Chicago.
The Fog Bowl
Good heavens this game was awful. It was also one we’ll never forget.
Leading up to the NFC Divisional match-up, the game was billed as a revenge match-up between Bears coach Mike Ditka and his former defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan. It was their first meeting since Ryan unceremoniously left Chicago after Super Bowl XX to take over as head coach for Philadelphia, and the two men had been snarling at each other the entire week.
But once the game started, all that hype went away, as the contest itself played out in two distinct halves — one in which people were able to see properly, and one in which they were not. And frankly, both halves were equally frustrating.
In the first half, the sun was shining brightly on an unseasonably warm December day in Chicago, and the Bears jumped on the board first thanks to a 64-yard touchdown pass from the woeful Mike Tomczak to Dennis McKinnon. Montana-to-Rice they weren’t. As for the Birds, their postseason inexperience was evident early on.
Although they outplayed Chicago for most of the first half, they trailed 17-9 at halftime after having two offensive scores wiped out by penalties on consecutive plays. In addition, Luis Zendejas missed a 43-yard field goal, Keith Jackson dropped a perfectly thrown touchdown pass and another Eagles drive ended at the 5-yard line as a Randall Cunningham 4th-and-1 QB sneak was stuffed for no gain.
Amazingly, that was the least frustrating of the two halves as, just as the two-minute warning hit, the warm air coasted over the nearby waters of Lake Michigan and dumped a dense fog right into the bowl of the stadium with no warning.
And it wouldn’t go away.
Down 17-9, neither team could see and yet officials allowed play to continue. Referee Jim Tunney had to announce the down and distance for each play on the stadium microphone so that broadcasters and fans knew what was happening. As to why they didn’t postpone or delay the game until the fog lifted, Tunney reasoned that both teams could see the opposing goal posts the entire game, however, it’s hard to imagine that the game would be allowed to continue today.
Chicago and the Eagles would add a field goal each in the dense fog, but Cunningham’s 407 passing yards were nullified by his three interceptions (and an inability to see) as the Birds fell to the Bears in one of the craziest games ever played, 20-12.
McNabb Comes Home
In 2000, the Eagles had gone 11-5 in Andy Reid’s second season as head coach, having beaten the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild card round and losing to the NY Giants in the divisional round. So in 2001, the team was expected to take another step forward, and that is exactly what they did, led by the best quarterback in franchise history, Donovan McNabb.
You heard me.
McNabb, born and raised in the Chicago area, was returning home to play the Bears, who had won the NFC Central with the league’s stingiest and turnover-hawking defense and a record of 13-3.
On defense, the Eagles were facing a Bears offense led by journeyman Jim Miller, who went 11-2 as a starter that season but completed just 57.7% of his passes for 2,299 yards with 13 TDs and 10 INTs and a QBR of 74.9. McNabb, meanwhile, made the Pro Bowl for the second year in a row by completing 57.8% of his passes for 3,233 yards, 25 TDs and 12 INTs for a QBR of 84.3. He also rushed for 273 yards on the season.
And in this game, McNabb wasn’t perfect, but he was at his playmaking best. He went 26-for-40 for 262 yards, 2 TDs and a pick-six, but he also rushed for a touchdown and made this phenomenal play just before halftime to make it 13-7, Eagles.
The Eagles knocked Miller out of the game with a shoulder injury thanks to a bruising hit by defensive star Hugh Douglas on an Eagles interception return (Douglas would later be fined $35,000 for the hit) in the first half, but the Bears returned a McNabb interception for a touchdown at the start of the 3rd quarter to go back up 14-13.
From there on out, the Eagles pulled away.
McNabb connected on a 6-yard strike to Duce Staley to go up 20-14 in the 3rd, with the Bears adding a field goal to make it 20-17. The Eagles then rattled off 13 unanswered points before a Chicago safety as the Birds ran the ball out of the end zone as time expired made the final score 33-19.
In the end, the Eagles outgained Chicago 336-184 and dominated time of possession 36:07 to 23:53, and David Akers kicked a team playoff record four field goals along the way, too.
The Eagles would go on to lose the in the NFC Championship Game against the Rams in St. Louis, the first of three straight NFC Championshp Game defeats by Reid and McNabb. But their victory against Chicago was their first in the divisional round since a 31-16 win over the Minnesota Vikings in 1980, their Super Bowl XV season.
Can the Eagles run the table as the NFC’s No. 6 seed this year? We’ll get our answers on Sunday afternoon in Chicago.
Source: https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2019/1/2/18165481/eagles-bears-fog-bowl-anniversary-30th-mixed-postseason-history-chicago-philadelphia-chicago-mcnabb
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Joe’s Weather Blog: Cold and more sleet/snow? (WED-4/4)
A very good but cold morning out there…at least the sunshine is out…and tomorrow (Thursday) still looks like a phenomenal day with highs in the 60-65° range. We deserve that…and it’s what I said would happen for Thursday in last weekend’s forecast. One good day this week…and it’s Thursday. After that though…back to the crummy winter weather that seems to have become more of the common this month that anything else.
Forecast:
Today: Mostly sunny and cold with highs in the 40s
Tonight: Mostly clear and chilly with lows dropping to near 35°. Temperatures will steady out overnight and may start going up before daybreak. Winds increasing and will make it feel chillier
Thursday: Partly cloudy and much warmer (although in the big scheme of things…really just average) with highs in the 60s
Friday: Dry initially with increasing clouds then sleet/snow possible later in the afternoon. Some accumulating snow possible Friday night into early Saturday.
Discussion:
So far the low this morning is down to 17° at KCI…this ties the 3rd coldest low temperature ever recorded in KC. It’s actually colder than the devastating hard freeze from about 10 years ago. You may remember that one…on 4/8/07. That devastated the Rose bushes at Loose Park and elsewhere. They had all bloomed early because of the warm Winter/March and were blossomed out if I remember correctly. It took years for them to recover.
Thankfully the weather has been so cold for so long in the last month or so…that the vegetation is far behind schedule compared to other early Springs around these parts (and recent years it seems). So that same impact won’t be felt again this time through.
Here are the coldest lows in the month of April…
This also ties 4/5/1920 as the coldest for so late in the season as well.
A lot of folks are getting grumpy with this weather…between the cold…the late winter/spring snows…the gray skies…it’s not been pleasant around these parts.
Interestingly…since 3/1 this is the 46th coldest 3/1-4/3 in KC weather history…it’s felt so much worse though right? Even since the 15th-3rd it’s the 28th coldest. There have been colder stretches including just a few years ago…in 2013.
In both cases…it just feels like we should be higher in those rankings…but gosh it’s been miserable.
So let’s start with some good news…there should be a couple of days next week…later int eh week, that are pretty nice again. That’s about all I’ve got for you though.
Now the bad news…there is the potential for a record breaking snow on Friday. Now while I could make that a catchy headline of the weather blog…the record for snow accumulations on 4/6 is just a Trace. So anything really measurable would break that record. Odds are favoring measurable snow in the viewing area sometime later Friday into early Saturday morning.
Once again,, seemingly like every single event since the new year started…this will be another wave coming out of the western Plains…and while temperatures will warm into the 60s on Thursday…colder air will start to move back into the area on Friday. The air will be colder and also drier…and that drier air will need to be overcome and that will take awhile to happen…the morning at least and into the afternoon.
Once this next wave comes out into the Plains snow/sleet will develop and spread into N MO and also spread through central KS…
This wave right now looks rather disorganized and the best area of lift isn’t matching up well with where the snow actually will be forming. aloft…and when it does it doesn’t last too long for the I-70 corridor. As a result, right now it appears that this will be a lower end type of event for KC. Also there will be some initial melting…maybe some sleet production as well…and while the roads should be rather messy again…potentially as early as evening rush on Friday…the worst part of travel may be more towards Friday night after sunset. Also there should be time for pre-treating this time compared to Easter Sunday where there was little to no pre-treating done (at least to my observation).
This snow actually may come together better towards the SW and south of KC proper…so areas from Topeka>Garnett>Pleasanton>Butler>Clinton and into the Lakes may see more snow than the north part of KC…areas on the south side of the Metro may see more snow than the north side of KC. Obviously this is all subject to change.
Right now I think a dusting up to 2″ of snow is possible in KC, especially on the south side…with some higher totals possible farther south and SW of KC…again this is very preliminary.
The record low for Saturday is 18° set in 2007. It’s possible we could approach this…depends on the rapid clearing behind this wave…but the air mass coming in will certainly support something that cold…and IF there is snow on the ground…then for sure we could get even colder which IF that were to happen…17° or lower…would then be the coldest EVER in KC so late into the Spring season…that would be an impressive record to set.
We shouldn’t be as cold Sunday AM…but it would need to be watched because of any snow on the ground. Although the April sun angle on Saturday with mostly sunny skies should eat away the snow on the ground (if there is any) in the viewing area rather quickly.
Sunday is another day to watch for “something” although I’m not really sure how that will play out right now. The GFS is excited about something coming through in the AM as the warmer air starts to fight back northwards. we may have issues with precip type IF this even happens, at least as the event unfolds…The EURO isn’t excited about this next system for KC at all…but I could see some sort of small and light “something” passing through before lunch on Sunday.
Travis Wessel gets the feature photo today…because we all need some sunshine in our lives right now!
Joe
from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2018/04/04/joes-weather-blog-cold-and-more-sleet-snow-wed-4-4/
from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2018/04/04/joes-weather-blog-cold-and-more-sleet-snow-wed-4-4/
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The Michigan vs. Wisconsin live blog: Badgers win in extremely Badgers fashion to reach 11-0
UW’s now two wins away from a Big Ten title and Playoff trip.
Postgame
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Some stats:
Total yards: UW 325, UM 234.
Second half yards: UW 226, UM 64.
Alex Hornibrook (UW): 9-for-19 for 143 yards, 1 TD, and 1 INT. Not too good, but he was 3-for-5 for 48 yards on the go-ahead scoring drive. Those two passes to Taylor were enormous.
John O’Korn (UM): 2-for-8 for 19 yards. Michigan was already starting to flag when Peters went down, but the Wolverines didn’t do a single thing after that.
Johnathan Taylor (UW): 19 carries for 132 yards. Not an incredibly efficient day, but he had some big, field-flipping plays.
Chris Evans and Karan Higdon (UM): 18 carries, 45 yards.
A very Wisconsin win for a very Wisconsin Wisconsin. Survive and advance.
Our Wisconsin blog reacts:
What was once a dream can now be a reality.
Who would have thought that the Wisconsin Badgers could have a real chance at going 12–0 heading into the Big Ten Championship Game? OK, so some of you thought it was a possibility. However, the act of actually winning 12 football games in a row is incredibly difficult. Minnesota, coming off of a butt-whipping from Northwestern, will undoubtedly be be frothing from the mouth and ready after P.J. Fleck gives the Gophers the most motivational speech he can muster.
However, if Wisconsin executes and handles its business, the Badgers should go 12–0, and enter the Big Ten Championship Game undefeated. Woof.
And our Michigan blog:
It was over when Peters went down.
Brandon Peters gave Michigan fans reasons for optimism the last three weeks with his strong play against poor opponents. He made a massive mistake fumbling on a scramble near the goal-line, but he continued to show flashes of why he is the future at quarterback for this program.
It was not perfect, but he had a connection going with Donovan Peoples-Jones (one of which was non-touchdown that should have been) and did guide the team to a 10-7 lead in the third quarter.
Then, he took a nasty, unnecessary hit after throwing the football that knocked him out of the game with a bad-looking head injury. John O’Korn replaced him in the lineup and the wind was out of Michigan’s sails from there.
People are freaking out at the inability to get it done, but anyone who has watched O’Korn the last few seasons knows what they are getting out of him. He is not a good, or even adequate, backup and that is disappointing.
Fourth Quarter
0:00. That’ll do it. Michigan goes four-and-out, Wisconsin kneels out the clock, and the Badgers are now two games away from a likely spot in the College Football Playoff. Well done.
2:25. Wisconsin 24, Michigan 10. Wisconsin fans can be heard singing “Build Me Up Buttercup” in the background as Wisconsin all but puts the game away. That’s a perfect college football moment right there. Nine consecutive runs gain 40 yards, move the chains three times, and force Michigan to burn its final timeouts.
Rafael Gaglianone kicks a 30-yard field goal, and it’s a 14-point game with under two and a half minutes left.
7:42. Dropped pass, run stuff, short scramble. A limp three-and-out for Michigan at just the wrong time, and then Nelson returns a 47-yard punt for 19 yards in the other direction. Wisconsin will start near midfield and is getting awfully close to 11-0.
9:54. No points for Wisconsin, but the Badgers do something almost as good: they flip the field and eat some clock. Michigan’s Josh Metellus is flagged for a really shaky pass interference penalty on third-and-4, then Taylor rips off a beautiful 52-yard cutback run to the Michigan 34.
Khaleke Hudson sacks Hornibrook for a huge loss after that, and the Badgers soon punt, but having the Wolverines start inside their 25 with under 10 minutes left is a fine result there.
13:17. Havoc looks so good on this Wisconsin defense. O’Korn’s first two passes of the fourth quarter are both knocked out of receivers’ hands by Badger defenders, and on a third-and-10 from the UW 49, he nearly gets sacked and throws incomplete. Another punt pins the Badgers at their 5, but the clock could get away from Michigan pretty quickly here.
Third Quarter
0:00. A few weeks ago, John O’Korn was benched in favor of Peters. Now it’s up to him to pull off a huge comeback. The third quarter ends with an 11-yard pass from O’Korn to Peoples-Jones (quietly having a lovely game). The Wolverines will start the fourth at their 36.
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(That was from a few years ago, not today. Don’t care.)
0:24. Wisconsin 21, Michigan 10. It’s amazing what some third-down heroics can do. After just barely being deprived of a huge first-half catch, Danny Davis makes a gorgeous one-handed catch of a third-and-8 pass for Wisconsin, then Pryor scores on a picture-perfect end around. And after looking completely lost offensively, Wisconsin has driven 77 and 61 yards for touchdowns in its last two drives.
2:06. Oof. After a short run and a short pass, Peters gets drilled by Van Ginkel while throwing incomplete on third down. His head and left shoulder take all the weight of both players, and he lies motionless on the ground for a while before getting driven off the field on a cart. I’m guessing we won’t see him again today. Michigan punts.
3:31. Wisconsin 14, Michigan 10. And now it’s Hornibrook’s turn to respond with some huge throws. Wisconsin’s first-down failures continue — the Badgers’ last seven first-down attempts: a four-yard run, a three-yard run, a five-yard sack, an interception, a four-yard stuff, an incompletion, and a one-yard stuff — but UM’s Tyree Kinnel commits a pass interference penalty on second-and-14, Hornibrook finds A.J. Taylor for a 51-yard bomb on third-and-13, and then Hornibrook and Taylor connect for a 19-yard score on third-and-11.
Did not see that coming. Wisconsin leads again.
6:36. Michigan 10, Wisconsin 7. The difference in this game right now is that Michigan has been getting some first downs before punting, and Wisconsin really hasn’t. It’s what tilted the field in UM’s favor in this quarter, and it just gave the Wolverines a field goal as well. An end-around to Peoples-Jones for 12 yards is all they get after the pick, but it’s all they need. Quinn Nordin hits a 39-yarder to give Michigan the lead.
8:33. INTERCEPTION. And there’s the crippling Hornibrook mistake Michigan was hoping for. He drops to pass again on first down (!) and, seemingly surprised by the lack of pressure, gets aggressive and throws into double coverage. Devin Bush reads him perfectly and picks the ball off while falling down at the UW 29. Uh oh.
8:42. Rinse, repeat. UM stalls out in UW territory (a first-down false start basically dooms the drive before it starts), then pins the Badgers at their 10 with a punt. On we go.
9:37. Yikes. No idea what Wisconsin can do offensively at the moment. UW comes out passing on first down — out of character — but Hornibrook can barely complete his drop before he gets sacked by what seems like nine Wolverines. Then on second down, the Badgers can’t even set up a screen before Hornibrook has to throw the ball away. After a short pass on third down, Wisconsin punts again, and Peoples-Jones returns it to the UW 41. The Badgers are back under 100 yards.
10:56. Michigan’s done a lovely job of flipping the field today. The Wolverines’ first play of the half is a 22-yard pass to Hill, the fullback, who leaked unseen out of the backfield. They go three-and-out from there, but Wisconsin will start its second drive at its 11.
12:51. Wisconsin’s first attempt at shaking things up offensively after a destitute first half: a jet sweep to Kendric Pryor on the second play of the half. It loses a yard. And then Hornibrook is sacked by Mike McCray on third down. Another three-and-out for the Badgers, in other words. But they did get their total yardage into triple digits. It’s exactly 100 now.
Halftime
Some stats:
Total yards: UM 170, Wisconsin 99. The Badgers gained 48 yards on one drive (which resulted in a punt) and only 51 the rest of the way. They have only one first down outside of that drive.
Brandon Peters (UM): 7-for-12 for 133 yards. He hasn't thrown a pick, but his red zone fumble took at least three points off of th board.
Alex Hornibrook (UW): 4-for-7 for 40 yards. No major mistakes, and he almost had a huge third-down completion, but it was overruled on replay.
Jonathan Taylor (UW): 9 carries, 45 yards, but 32 came on two carries on the one decent punting drive.
Michigan backs (Higdon, Evans, fullback Khalid Hill): 15 carries, 37 yards. It's been all on Peters.
Second Quarter
0:00. The half ends with a Wisconsin three-and-out, a punt, and a Michigan kneeldown. Having zero timeouts cost Michigan a chance at at least a field goal or something at the end.
2:24. Michigan 7, Wisconsin 7. What a hell of a response by Peters. Following that devastating fumble, he comes out and finds Peoples-Jones on a 48-yard bomb, hits Evans underneath for 19 yards on third-and-8, then hits McKeon for 14 yards to the UW 1. Ben Mason takes it in from there, and we’re tied late in the first half. Peters looks like a sophomore at times, but he could be good soon.
5:58. The branding is strong in this one.
#TightEndPassGame: Wisconsin gets out of the shadow of its end zone with a 20-yard pass from Hornibrook to Fumagali.
#PowerRushing: Big rushes of 11 and 21 yards by Taylor get the Badgers into Michigan territory.
#DefenseDefenseDefense: Taylor is stuffed for a four-yard loss on first down, which leads to third-and-forever and a punt.
That last part was close, though. Danny Davis III appeared to make a huge first-down catch on the aforementioned third down, but replay said it was just barely incomplete. A couple of really tight, high-impact replays so far.
8:42. FUMBLE. Game of inches! After a #TightEndBigPlay — Peters to Gentry for 35 yards as Peters gets rocked — Gentry lobs to Peoples-Jones on second-and-goal from the 5. Peoples-Jones’ right foot comes down out of bounds, and it is ruled incomplete.
Replay proves inconclusive; you could make the case that Peoples-Jones’ left foot came down inbounds a split second before the right foot hit, but you would damn near need 3-D imagery to know for sure.
That’s a problem because on third-and-goal, Peters scrambles left and is stripped as he tries to reach forward toward the end zone. Derrick Tindal recovers for Wisconsin at the Michigan 1.
10:43. Okay, the three most important plays have been on punts. After a Wisconsin three-and-out, Wisconsin’s Anthony Lotti punts for only 28 yards to the Badger 40. The refs could have called a running-into-the-kicker penalty if they wanted to but said that Lotti flopped a little bit. Definitely a 50-50 call.
12:47. Goodness, Wisconsin’s pursuit speed is something else. After converting a third-and-short, Peters gains only one yard on a scramble, then Evans gains just two out wide. Then Peters scrambles on third down and sees tight end Zach Gentry wide open, but his lob is short, and Natrell Jamerson is able to catch up and break it up.
Brad Robbins’ punt is super short but takes an amazing bounce (25-plus yards) and is downed at the 3. The biggest plays have been punts, and there have been lots of third-down passes to (or intended for) tight ends. This game is exactly what it was supposed to be so far.
First Quarter
0:00. The quarter comes to an end with Michigan’s Ty Isaac turning his ankle (Higdon was already getting his leg looked at as well, which probably means a lot of Chris Evans moving forward) and the Wolverines facing a third-and-inches.
1:15. Wisconsin 7, Michigan 0. After the timeout, UM runs a pitch play, and Andrew Van Ginkel blows it up. Michigan got absolutely nothing from at least two of its three timeouts ... and then Nick Nelson makes the malfunction worse by fielding the ensuing shaky punt off the bounce and weaving 50 yards for a touchdown.
That he let it bounce seemed to throw UM off the scent, and when the bounce checked up nicely, Nelson took advantage.
2:17. Following a two-yard Karan Higdon run, Wisconsin pressure creates an incomplete screen pass, and then Michigan uses its final timeout of the half 13 minutes in! No idea why, either—the Wolverines were lined up in a wildcat formation, which suggests they were waiving the white flag for the drive anyway.
2:58. Good and bad from Hornibrook: he misses seeing a tight end coming open on the second play of Wisconsin’s second drive but fires a perfect, tight pass to Troy Fumagali on third-and-5. But on third-and-1 on the next set of downs, Wisconsin passes again, and he can’t quite fit a tight pass in to another tight end, Kyle Penniston. But the first down allows UW to flip the field with a 40-yard punt. Michigan will start at its 14.
6:10. Well that took a while. Michigan moves the chains once and then punts, but not until calling two timeouts due to confusion and/or an expiring play clock. And after the second timeout, Peters gets rocked by Garret Dooley on third-and-7. Probably could have saved a timeout and had the same result.
Pretty impressive achievement, though: Michigan killed nearly four minutes while snapping the ball only six times and calling timeout twice.
10:07. Wisconsin gets a little too cute — or maybe uncute — on its first possession. Alex Hornibrook gains four yards on a rollout on the first play, then Jonathan Taylor’s first carry gains five. But on third-and-1, Wisconsin tries a quick plunge by fullback Alex Ramesh, and he is stoned. Donovan Peoples-Jones returns the ensuing punt to the Michigan 27.
12:23. Michigan’s first drive just about follows the “scoring on Wisconsin” script: Wisconsin commits a holding penalty to move the chains (check!), and UM quarterback Brandon Peters completes a third-and-9 pass to tight end Sean McKeon to move the chains again (check!).
However, from the UW 41, Nick Nelson breaks up another third-down pass to McKeon, and Michigan, not one to ever really go for it on fourth down, punts into the end zone for a touchback.
15:00. The weather is sufficiently gross — 37 degrees and moist. Let’s do this.
Pregame
It feels like ages ago that this was an actual concern, but it really was, at least for me: Wisconsin's Paul Chryst entered 2017 with his best team yet in Madison... and with maybe the least experienced defensive coordinator you'll ever see.
Jim Leonhard is the embodiment of Wisconsin football. A walk-on from Tony, Wisc., he was a three-time All-American and Wisconsin hall of fame inductee, and despite his 5’8 stature, he spent a decade in the pros, starting for about four seasons and picking off 14 passes.
Leonhard retired after 2014, spent a year as basically a staff volunteer for UW in 2015, then landed his first official gig — Wisconsin DBs coach — last fall. And now he’s the coordinator for a defense that has ranked in the Def. S&P+ top 10 for back-to-back years. After Aranda left for LSU and replacement Justin Wilcox left for the Cal head coaching job, Chryst stayed in-house.
I’m not going to question Leonhard’s aptitude or potential as a teacher, but ... this is all rather quick, isn’t it?
This feels like the ultimate “Screw it, we’re Wisconsin” move. And because of the experience elsewhere on the coaching staff and the experience littering the two-deep, it might work. But consider this a red flag.
Calling something a red flag is a lovely hedge. You’re not committing to saying something is a problem; you’re simply pointing it out just in case.
The Leonhard hire: Not a problem.
Ten games in, Wisconsin has yet to lose.
The No. 5 Badgers have allowed more than 17 points just once all season and head into Saturday’s game against No. 24 Michigan with the top-ranked defense in the country, according to Def. S&P+.
The Badgers are efficient. They prevent big plays. If you get the ball in the red zone, they’re probably holding you to a field goal. They are good against the run and tremendous against the pass. There is almost no discernible weakness, on paper.
It’s hard to look at Wisconsin’s full-season numbers and find a clear path to scoring. In instances like these, it’s sometimes helpful to focus on the rare failures.
In seven Big Ten games, the Badgers have allowed teams to score 20 times — 11 touchdowns and nine field goals. Let’s see if we can find any similarities in how teams went about putting points on the board.
1. Against Wisconsin, the best offense is a good defense
Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports
Alex Hornibrook
Of these 20 scores, eight came after Wisconsin turnovers. Nebraska returned an interception for a touchdown, and Iowa returned two. Purdue, Maryland, and Northwestern each earned field goals after forcing turnovers in UW territory and going three-and-out.
UW quarterback Alex Hornibrook is having a decent year. He’s completing 64 percent of his passes and averaging 8.1 yards per attempt, including sacks. The Badgers rank 28th in Passing S&P+ and 19th in passing success rate, and for an offense so focused on and capable of running the football, that’s more than enough.
He can be baited into mistakes, however, as Bud Elliott and I discussed around the 55-minute mark of this week’s Podcast Ain’t Played Nobody.
Hornibrook has thrown 12 interceptions in 206 passes, a 5.8 percent interception rate that is more than twice what you would prefer. He also takes sacks on 6.5 percent of his attempts. He is confident and willing to step up and make tough passes. He just doesn’t always make those passes well.
The easiest path for a Michigan score is a short field; the Wolverines’ defense is young but excellent, ranking sixth in Def. S&P+ despite major 2016-to-2017 turnover. They are fourth in Passing S&P+ and first in passing success rate, and it would only take a couple of poor Hornibrook passes to change this game.
2. Make the big pass (or get bailed out)
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Brandon Peters and Jim Harbaugh
Of the 14 scoring drives in this sample that actually required an offense to move the ball, Wisconsin’s defense committed six third-down penalties to extend those drives. Most were pass interference penalties. There were a couple on second downs, too.
Wisconsin’s pass defense is insanely physical. The Badgers rank fifth in Adjusted Sack Rate and third in passing success rate. A whopping 46 percent of opponents’ incompletions are the result of a pass defensed (intercepted or broken up), the highest rate in the country. UW ranks first in both linebacker havoc rate (forced fumbles, tackles for loss, and passes defensed divided by total snaps) and defensive back havoc rate, as well.
Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports
Nick Nelson
The balance here is astounding. Eleven Badgers have at least 2.5 tackles for loss, 10 have at least 1.5 sacks, nine have taken part in at least three run stuffs (stops at or behind the line), and seven have defensed at least three passes — corner Nick Nelson is third in the country with 18.
This Badger D does not wait around for you to make a mistake; it forces them. But this physicality is also a dare to the officials, a “You’re not going to call pass interference on every single pass, are you?” wager. That bet usually pays off, but sometimes it doesn’t.
Wisconsin averages just 5.9 penalties per game, 56th in the country and right at the national average. But there’s a pretty strong correlation between when these penalties occur and when opponents score points. There’s also a correlation between points and big third-down passes.
Michigan’s scoring has risen dramatically since Brandon Peters took over at quarterback three games ago. After averaging 17 points per game over the three preceding games, they’ve averaged 34 with Peters. But he’s not being asked to do a whole lot.
In wins over Rutgers, Minnesota, and Maryland, Peters’ average passing line was 9-of-15 for 108 yards. The run game has been key, and Peters’ job has been to avoid mistakes.
He’s made some pretty big passes, though. On third down with four or more yards to go, he’s 9-of-14 for 98 yards and no picks. Meanwhile, in this 14-drive scoring sample for Wisconsin opponents, passers are 9-of-15 for 124 yards on such downs. Peters is moving the chains, and he’ll be asked to do the same in Madison, especially since there’s one more commonality among these scoring drives: The run isn’t really an option.
During scoring drives, opponents have rushed 53 times in 140 plays, not including five sacks. Only seven of these rushes gained more than nine yards — six of those came when the opponent was down double digits and Wisconsin was in defend-the-pass mode — and 32 gained four or fewer.
Success against Wisconsin tends to come from a quarterback’s arm, not a running back’s legs.
3. Go for it
Four times in these 14 drives, it took more than third-down conversions. Maryland converted a fourth-and-10, Northwestern converted a fourth-and-7 and a fourth-and-1, and Purdue converted a fourth-and-6.
In three of these four, the opponent was down by double digits and trying desperately to stay in the game. But despite Michigan’s play-it-safe ideal, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Jim Harbaugh to take some risks on fourth-and-short.
Opponents are getting no more than three good scoring chances per game against UW. You have to take advantage of each.
Risk of this nature would be out of Harbaugh’s character. The Wolverines have only attempted 11 fourth-down conversions in 10 games, 101st in the country. With a great defense at his disposal, Harbaugh is happy to punt or kick a field goal and live to fight another series. If his defense is stuffing Wisconsin and/or forcing a few turnovers, then that approach might be fine. If not, though? Might have to force the issue, whether it’s in your DNA or not.
The S&P+ pick: Wisconsin (-7.5) 28, Michigan 18.
Wisconsin is tremendous, but this might the worst possible time to play the Wolverines (S&P+ disagrees.)
It always feels like a cop-out to say that quarterback play is going to determine this game, but quarterback play is probably going to determine this game.
Michigan’s best path to an easy score or two comes from forcing Hornibrook mistakes. Sustained scoring drives will almost certainly require big passes from Peters.
Michigan’s recent offensive rebound has to give Wolverine fans hope here. It appears it’s a lot more difficult to play UM now than it was a month ago.
But this Wisconsin defense is mostly immovable, and the Wolverines might need picks and penalty flags to score the upset.
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