#for the most part DT is a summer vacation but I will find something that is gonna tickle eyeie

[impossible-rat-babies]

love the gameplay trailer bc the lady is like: “could you have held fast that which is dear? without sacrifice?” and my brain just jump cuts to eyrie family guy death pose at the end of EW

[junker-town]

10 good and/or bad 2018 NFL draft ideas for the Browns

We figured it out so you don’t have to, John Dorsey!

The Cleveland Browns are in a great position in the upcoming 2018 NFL Draft ... probably. Not even the Browns can mess up having the No. 1 and No. 4 pick, right?

Since there are a lot of different things the Browns can do here, we decided to figure it out for them.

1. The Bills really want your No. 1 pick. Give it to them. — Bill Connelly

Last month, it came out that Buffalo — which has already traded its starting quarterback to the Browns — had talked to the Browns about a trade for the No. 1 pick.

The Bills have two first-round picks (No. 12 and 22 overall) and two second-round picks (No. 53 and 56). They have next year’s first- and second-round picks, too. They would likely be willing to part with a few of them.

But let’s say they just gave you this year’s 12th and 22nd picks. You could let them take the risk on a guy who, with the right breaks, could end up as good as Ryan Mallett. You, meanwhile, could grab the following with your three first-round picks:

No. 4: QB Baker Mayfield (Oklahoma), OG Quenton Nelson (Notre Dame), or RB Saquon Barkley (Penn State).

No. 12: S Derwin James (Florida State), OT Isaiah Wynn (Georgia), or DT Vita Vea (Washington). There’s a slight chance LB Roquan Smith is still on the board, though I refuse to believe 11 teams would be dumb enough to pass him up.

No. 22: DE Harold Landry (Boston College), DT Da’Ron Payne (Alabama), QB Lamar Jackson (Louisville), or QB Mason Rudolph (Oklahoma State).

Getting Allen/Nelson vs. getting some combination like Mayfield/Wynn/Landry or Nelson/James/Rudolph? Ignoring the other picks you’d probably be able to coax out of Buffalo, you take the latter 100 of 100 times.

2. Trade all your draft picks and only have future draft picks. — Ryan Nanni

In the seven drafts from 2009 through 2015, you made 10 first round selections. Sometimes you went defense (Phil Taylor, Barkevious Mingo, Joe Haden, Justin Gilbert, Danny Shelton), sometimes you tried to improve the offensive line (Alex Mack, Cam Erving), sometimes you tried to find your quarterback (Johnny Manziel, Brandon Weeden), and sometimes you picked the highest-drafted running back in five years (Trent Richardson).

I’m not going to tell you those were all bad picks! But none of them play for your team now, so, in some sense, there was no point in them.

Which is why I’m going to suggest you trade out. Not just of the first round, but of the 2018 draft entirely. Stockpile picks that won’t be available for a year or two or three. Prey on the weakness of teams that want to try and win now. It’s 2006, you’re a large financial institution, and every other team is an unsuspecting homebuyer. Go sell them on that balloon mortgage!

There are other reasons why you should just trade into the future.

You won’t get draft grades. Sports media jerks can’t say you screwed up!

Zero risk that you take the biggest bust. I don’t know who that person might be, and neither do you, but this is how you stay off unflattering slideshows.

You get to seem extremely smart. “Wow, no team has ever traded out of a draft entirely! The Browns must have some revolutionary thinkers, which we will write about all offseason because we’re starving.” — Sports Media Jerks, who now love you

Most importantly? You get to sell vague hope. It’s a different hope than here-is-a-21-year-old-holding-our-jersey-please-put-all-your-emotions-on-him. This hope is so far away that you don’t even have to define it.

Plus you can always just find a new job before those picks.

3. Just take Baker Mayfield at No. 4, please. — Morgan Moriarty

Look, we all know you need a quarterback. I know you may be distracted by the shiny tallness of Josh Allen, but don’t fall for it! How many typical, pro-style quarterbacks do you have to watch fail in your city?

Mayfield has an edge to him. What better way to turn things around by bringing some energy?

Remember how Sam Darnold flirted with staying at USC amid y’all having the first pick? And how Jim Mora said he wouldn’t want his former QB, Josh Rosen, to be taken by Cleveland? Meanwhile, Mayfield comes off excited when talking about what he can do in Cleveland.

Oh, and he has the two most efficient passing seasons in college football history. There’s also that.

4. Don’t even show up. — Brian Floyd

It’s fine to trade all the picks away for future endeavors. But that’s just kicking the can of draft pain down the road.

Don’t bother taking offers for picks. Don’t answer the phone. Don’t look at the Big Board.

Just take a vacation and clear your mind. The draft can be a stressful time, and there are perils with every pick and transaction. You don’t need that this year, Browns. Focus on yourself.

Skip the draft. You deserve it.

5. Just take a quarterback who is actually good. — Adam Stites

Yes, there’s a lot of creative ways to use the No. 1 pick. But a really novel idea would be to just get a quarterback who’s a good football player.

Allen — a player who completed 56 percent of his passes at Wyoming in 2017 and 49 percent (FORTY NINE PERCENT!) at a junior college in 2014 — is not that quarterback.

Mayfield would fit the bill after winning the Heisman in 2017. Lamar Jackson was the Heisman winner in 2016. You could sell me on Rosen or Darnold. Just figure out which one is good at football and pick him.

6. Get a QB and Minkah Fitzpatrick, and call it a day. — Alex Kirshner

I have no idea if any of the quarterbacks at the top of this draft class is actually going to be any good as an NFL starter. I suspect Allen won’t and Mayfield will, but everyone is a wild card. The Browns should trust their player personnel department — I can’t believe I’ve just typed those words — and pick their favorite at No. 1.

At No. 4, they should take Alabama’s do-everything defensive back. Fitzpatrick is really close to a sure thing as a future Pro Bowl DB, no matter his position.

The Browns could mess up a QB pick easily, but you’d almost have to be doing it on purpose to not get elite play out of Fitzpatrick.

7. Just build around Tyrod Taylor. — Harry Lyles Jr.

This isn’t realistic, but we’re going to play the game anyway. If the Browns decide to build around Taylor, they get to take Bradley Chubb and Saquon Barkley at No. 1 and No. 4 overall. You give your QB Barkley, Josh Gordon, Jarvis Landry, Corey Clement, and David Njoku as weapons, with a defensive line that includes Myles Garrett and Chubb. Use the three second round picks, and others in later rounds, to add depth and talent.

With that, you hope Taylor can do enough. After all, Blake Bortles took the Jaguars to the AFC Championship game. And let’s not forget:

Tyrod Taylor has the lowest interception rate in NFL history (at least 1000 attempts).

— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) November 19, 2017

The Browns would need some time to get experience. All of those weapons minus Gordon are still pretty new, and even Gordon spent a few years away. But assuming they all reach their potential, that’s a nasty skill corps.

If Taylor doesn’t work out, I know another quarterback they could give a shot.

8. Be boring. — Sarah Hardy

For the love of LeBron, Browns, just be boring. Do what most mock drafts think you’re going to do: draft Darnold at No. 1 and either Barkley or Chubb at No. 4. If one ends up as a bust, it won’t be because you Browns’d it up. It’s just the cruel fate of the NFL.

Like, by almost every metric, Allen is not going to be a franchise quarterback. EVERYONE KNOWS THIS. All it would do is confirm every joke made at your expense, that you are the Browns and will always be the Browns and there’s some ancient curse that forbids you from ever, ever, ever making the right decision. Maybe Darnold won’t ever be a viable starter either, but he could be. There’s still hope.

It might be anticlimactic on draft night, but who cares? At least you won’t be making fools of yourselves.

9. Redeem all picks for cash value — Ryan Van Bibber

Legally every coupon is required to have a cash value associated with it. I don’t know if that’s true for draft picks, but I do know that you can’t go wrong having cash in hand.

10. DRAFT. FOUR. QUARTERBACKS. — Jason Kirk

Cleveland’s QB situation is an ages-old smoking crater. Let’s get drastic.

Drafting Allen is an especially big risk for the Browns. It’s a big risk for anybody, but can a team with a coach on a scorching-hot seat afford to spend a year on such a raw prospect?

But! Go ahead and take Allen at No. 1. Then trade all your other 2018 picks for No. 2. (The trade value chart says it’d come close to working, but you’ll probably still need to sweeten the deal, so tell New York you’ll put in a good word with LeBron about his upcoming free agency.) Who are you gonna take there? Take Darnold, since the rest of the NFL seems to like him a lot.

Now you have a developmental QB and a relatively game-ready rookie. But drafting two QBs was something the Browns thought of already, and therefore it’s a bad idea.

It’s bad because it’s not enough.

You want the No. 3 pick, and it’s just become even harder to get, because you’ve already freaked out the rest of the league. It’s gonna take pretty much your whole 2019 draft to get the Jets to step down, but luckily, you’ve already put in a good word about New York with LeBron.

You finally get No. 3, and No. 4 was yours. Pick two from among Jackson, Mayfield, and Rosen.

You now have five QBs (counting Taylor), a ridiculous number tying up a huge portion of your salary cap, but remember: you’re the Browns. Problems can only be solved via extreme means, and even the word “can” is theoretical. Now sign a four-summer reality show deal, with one of these five guys getting traded each year until only a starter and backup remain.

We’ve fixed Cleveland’s QB situation. Have we ruined everything else in the process? No, we haven’t. It was already ruined anyway.

[chitarra10]

12, 15, 50, 126, 127, 132, 133, 135, 136 & 150 for the Hit Me asks!

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?Right now?  The 5 brand-spanking-new Skillet songs that just came out on the extended version of the Unleashed album, and they are freaking amazing!! :-)  There are 5 brand new ones and 3 remixes. ��Here, check out the new ones… I think you’ll love them as much as I do. :-)

Breaking Free (ft. Lacey Sturm from Flyleaf)Stay Til The DaylightBraveYou Get Me HighSet It Off

15. What good thing happened this summer?Panama happened. :-)  It was mission #9 for me, but it was the very first one for my mother, and the way things went were very different from missions past.  This time, it was more about me helping my mother learn to navigate her way through doing the missions thing for the first time, and teaching other people what I’ve learned since I first started doing this back in 2006. :-)  When we went down there to YWAM’s Chiriquí base, there were already 2 other teams down there.  One team, the Passport team, was composed of people from all over the USA, and the other team, the DTS team, was composed of people from the USA and Panama.  The Passport team was there to go out into all the local indigenous villages and do all the humanitarian aid and street ministry stuff, and the DTS team was more like a 5 month college course of study where they took various theology and leadership classes directed at learning what would be needed to become a full-time foreign missionary.  The Passport team had a 16-passenger bus that they were using to go out to all the villages, and there were 15 of them, therefore either me or my mother could go with them, but not both.  Since I’d done this thing 8 times before, I told my mother to take the spot on the Passport team and I’d stay at the base with the DTS team and do the nerdy class thing that I love to do. :-)  So my mother got to go out and actually experience a real mission IRL, and finally see with her own eyes all those things that she’d only ever seen in the pictures I’d taken over the years… and finally understand what I mean when I talk about the unique way your heart breaks for those people in those villages when you see the utter joy on their faces and in their hearts when you’re bringing them the most basic of needs that even the poorest among us in this country take for granted on a daily basis.  And in the mean time, while she was out doing that, I was asked to spend the 2 weeks teaching one of the classes!!  I’d never taught more than one lesson in a small study group in my entire life, and there I was, up in front of a large group of future missionaries, teaching class on street ministry and drama/theater methods, and directing them in learning a 5-minute skit they’d later use on their first mission as real missionaries that would happen in Quito, Ecuador. :-)  You know how they say “get out of your comfort zone?”  Yeah… we were basically on a different planet from our comfort zones, and it was THE MOST AWESOME thing in the universe!!  So yeah… this summer, Panama happened. :-)

Here’s a picture I took of my mother with all the girls of the Passport Team and a few of the kids from the base… they just loved her, and the night before we left for the airport to go home, they made her a little card to tell her how much they loved having her with them on the team for those 2 weeks and that they were gonna miss her.  My mom is the one in the middle with the pink shirt and holding the card, and Aunt Cathy is the gray-haired one in the back with her mouth wide open. X-)

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore?Dark gray… it’s the same hoodie I’ve had since I was a senior in high school, so it’s 20 years old, and probably the only one like it left in the world.  I don’t care how many times I have to repair it, I’m gonna wear it until it’s literally unwearable, and even then, I’m gonna keep it with my souvenir stuff because it’s been with me too long and through too many things to ever give it up. :-)

126. Are you currently bored?I guess I kinda am.  I’ve been off work for the past 3 weeks with a broken hand… yes, I’m typing all this with only 9 functioning fingers X-)… and I really don’t have a whole lot to do except sit here, twiddling the one thumb that works, waiting to be able to earn money again because now I’m $500 broke, so I can’t even spent this “vacation” doing anything.  I did say I wanted a vacation, however I didn’t wanna break my hand and lose a month of paychecks to get it.

127. What makes you happy?Generally, doing what I know I’m meant to do with my life.  Ya know, like that thing you know you in your heart that you were created and put on this planet to do.  And for me, it has anything to do with missions, whether it’s in a country far away from here, or right here in my own hometown.  I don’t care how old, sick, broken down, or crippled I get, I’ll continue to find a way to keep doing something, anything, for missions as long as I still have the mental capacity to do so. :-)

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?My friend Nadia.  We’re both reading through this book by John Bevere called “Killing Kryptonite,” and while discussing what we’ve read so far, we got into one of those deep, detailed, and personal, yet nerdy kind of conversations that I love to get into.

133. Favourite lyrics right now?At the moment, I think I’m gonna go with the brand-spanking-new Skillet song, “Breaking Free.”  Pretty much the whole song. :-)  It’s about not allowing yourself to be chained down by the “status quo” types that are trying to force you to fit their image of what they think you should be, and “breaking free” to be who and what you know you’re supposed to be, and instead of letting the pain break you down, letting it make you stronger.  That’s been a running theme in my life for the past few years when I finally got away from the people who were basically trying to torture the “normal” into me because they thought they could “cure” my autism and make me a “normal” person, and learning to do just what the song says, and not to be ashamed of that.  So this song really hits the heartstrings hard. :-)

135. Dumbest lie you ever told?Trying to convince someone that I was one of the “normal” people so as not to get rejected again.  Didn’t take too long for that to blow up in my face and give myself away.  It ended badly.  Landed me smack in the middle of a bunch of authority figures who became abusers that tried to torture the “normal” into me and make me fit into the image that they decided that a “normal” person should fit.  Being autistic, this was literally 100% impossible for me no matter how hard I tried, and the more I failed, the harder they’d punish me for failing.  Same people I mentioned in the previous question.  But I gotta confess… and I honestly don’t know if it’s wrong of me or not to be thinking this way… I’m kinda proud of myself for being their first failure to conform someone.  I was sent to them because they had a reputation of always getting the person to conform, and I was the first person they ever failed with, and when I think about that, it kinda makes me proud of myself.

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed?My apartment is the studio type, so it’s one big room, and my bed is in the left corner farthest from the door behind the part that’s sectioned off for the closet and the bathroom.  So the doors are always locked and deadbolted, and chained whenever I’m home.  The city I live in is somewhere in the top 50 most dangerous cities in the USA, and it’s the second most dangerous city in the state, so always locked and chained.  That’s also why I have a CCW license and I’m trying to save up for a S&W 9mm Shield… because I need it.

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page?“Hardships have a way of waking us up, such as in the case of The Prodigal Son.”  –pg. 42 of Killing Kryptonite by John Bevere