Breaking: San Francisco Giants assistant coach Alyssa Nakken, who made history as the first woman on a major league baseball coaching staff, is leaving the Giants to join the Cleveland Guardians as a member of player development.
Also, not so much breaking news, but a fluid situation. SF Niners quarterback Brock Purdy did not practice Thursday with the team, due to a sore shoulder, and is in the "iffy" status for the game against the Packers in a very cold Green Bay this Sunday. Niners are keeping mum on his official status as of this writing. We shall see on Sunday! UPDATE: Right after I hit Publish- dang! Purdy is OUT for Packers game, As is Bosa! 49ers injury report for Week 12 vs. Green Bay Packers: OUT QB Brock Purdy (right shoulder) DE Nick Bosa (hip/oblique) DL Kevin Givens (groin) CB Charvarius Ward (personal) WR Jacob Cowing (concussion) LB Tatum Bethune (knee)
Questionable LT Trent Williams (ankle) OL Jon Feliciano (knee) Now onto what happened in the last week, and random eye candy!
San Francisco 49ers: The Seattle Seahawks come to Levi's in Santa Clara to take on the 49ers in a NFC West matchup. The Niners will be without star playmaker George Kittle, out with a strained hamstring. Also no punter Mitch Wishnowsky, who is on injured reserve with back issues, so Patrick O' Donnell makes his debut.
1st Quarter: Seahawks open with a field goal, than the Niners go 12 plays, 75 yards in just over eight minutes, with QB Brock Purdy, after slipping on the turf on the previous play, scampers along the sidelines for a 10 yard touchdown! WR Jauan Jennings had a lot of catches during that drive as well. 49ers 7 Seahawks 3. 2nd Quarter: Tipped pass by Purdy ends up in Seattle players hands, giving the Seahawks excellent field position at ten minute mark. 49ers tackle Gros-Matos, just back from the injured reserve list, gets a huge sack on Seattle QB Geno Smith, forcing the Seahawks to settle for a long field goal. Another 49ers special teams blunder as Mason muffs the kickoff catch, but luckily the ball bounces out of bounds. A huge sack of Purdy, and two tipped passes forces the 49ers to punt back to the Seahawks with 1:29 to go. Penalty flags everywhere as a scrum breaks out, and Seahawks end up punting with 24 seconds left! The first half ends with the score Niners 7 Seahawks 6.
3rd Quarter: Seattle gets the ball to start the 3rd quarter, and Smith ends up throwing an interception after three plays! Niners start at the Seahawks 35 yard line. Niner penalties stunt this drive and so San Francisco settles for a 33 yard Jake Moody field goal. 10-6 Niners.
Seattle then goes 11 plays 67 yards to score a touchdown, now 13-10 Seahawks.
4th Quarter: Forty-Niners with the ball to start the 4th, and this drive was basically the Jauan Jennings drive, as he caught two big catches on 3rd downs to move the chains, and then finished it off with a 5 yard catch in the end zone from Purdy! Niners 17 Seahawks 13, mid 4th! Btw, Nick Bosa out of the game with an oblique strain. Seattle then drives to the 35, but the 49er defense comes up big, stuffing the Seahawks on 4th and inches! Niners take over the ball on downs with 4:35 to play! Same score as the Seahawks get the ball back with over two minutes remaining, and Geno Smith leads his team not with his arm, but his legs, as the Seattle QB had two big run, the second being a Seattle touchdown to win the game for the Seahawks, 20-17.
The Niners have blown 4th quarter leads to all three NFC West teams this season, and quite frankly, at 5-5, this is just an average football team, going on the road for the next two weeks, first against Green Bay, then the Buffalo Bills. Oh, and both Seahawks TD's were scored with Nick Bosa out of the game, so there's that; but the offense, outside another great game by Jennings, was just not clicking, and the defense, seemed gassed on that last Seattle drive, so plenty of blame to go around.
In other big NFL games, On Thursday night, the Philly Eagles flexed and brought the high-flying Washington Commanders back to earth with a 26-18 win in a key NFC match-up. Sunday had the Baltimore Ravens visit Pittsburgh in a key AFC match-up of two teams that just do not like each other! In this defensive battle, the Steelers eke out an 18-16 win! Finally the OTHER key AFC game was the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs visiting the Bills in Buffalo, and QB Josh Allen and the Bills handed the Chiefs their first loss since Christmas Day, 2023, defeating Kansas City, 30-21!
It's an Eye Candy Collage of a young British Olympic all-time diving medalist, Tom Daley!
College Football: Syracuse Orangemen came to Berkeley, and the Cal Bears got the pulp beaten out of them, losing 33-25. Did not help that QB Fernando Mendoza threw for 2 interceptions just in the first quarter, and that Cal's TOP (Time of Possession) was barely over 20 minutes in a 60 minute game. Cal is now 5-5, and needs to win one of its last two if it wants to be eligible for a bowl game. Big Game rivalry up next as its Cal vs Stanford next week. Oh, Stanford upset #19 Louisville, 38-35 in the last seconds of the game in a battle of the Cardinal-named teams!
Upset watch had #22 LSU fall to arch-rival Florida, 27-16 in a very energetic, entertaining game! #1 Oregon ducked and upset at the hands of Wisconsin, winning 16-13. The big matchup of the week had #7 Tennessee visiting a PACKED Athens, GA stadium as the Volunteers took on the #12 Georgia Bulldogs. The score was tied at halftime, 17-17, but then the 3rd quarter started and you could put the Vols offense on the side of a milk carton, as they were missing in action, were shut out, as Georgia won, 31-17.
The late game produced the biggest upset of the day/night, as #6 BYU were upset by Kansas, 17-13.
The rankings came out and The Vols dropped to tenth, while the Bulldogs rose back up to eighth. BYU took the biggest hit, dropping seven spots to 14th place. The top five remain the same, but that will change next weekend, as #2 Ohio State takes on #5 Indiana in a battle of the undefeated teams! The other game to watch is undefeated #18 Army taking on #6 ranked Notre Dame in the evening game!
Eye Candy Alert: Another collage of Canadien singer and all-around sweetie, Shawn Mendes, thru the years!
Golden State Warriors: The Dubs beat the Memphis Grizzlies last Friday, 123-118 at Chase Center, in a game that coach Kerr of the Warriors said of the fourth quarter, was "disgusting" and apologized to the fans. He did not outright say it, but considering how livid he was on court at the end of the game, and two of his players had to escort him off the court, and the parade of fouls/free throws given to the Grizzlies, Kerr's disgust was with the officiating! Off to Inglewood, CA, as the Dubs play their first road game in the LA Clippers brand-new super high-tech arena. I'm guessing all the gadgets and gizmos were distracting to the Warriors, as no player had broken into double figures at halftime, but they had already turned the ball over 13 times!!!! The turnover plague continued for the second half, and the Warriors made a valiant effort to come back, but hang loss number three on them as the Clippers won, 104-99. Golden State bounced back the next night, cleaning up those pesky turnovers, posting up a stingy defense to defeat the Atlanta Hawks, 120-97 at home at Chase Center. Bad news to arrive in the form of free agent signing of De'Anthony Melton, who tore his ACL and will have surgery that will end Melton's 2024 season.
Eye Candy Alert: Oh, it's World ranked #3 tennis star Carlos Alcaraz doing a photoshoot!
Movie reviews: First off, Twisters, a sequel to the highly entertaining and popular original storm chasers movie, Twister. All new cast, better CGI, good disaster set pieces, but this flick was just "OK" for me, I would say disappointing. Too much country music soundtrack, too many storm-chasers, lots of stereotypes (if you have a PH.d, you a woke loser!), and the flick is about 20 minutes too long. I originally was in the "hated it" column, but the last half-hour was the kind of movie I was expecting, so "disappointed" is the label I'm slapping on it. Twisters is worth a watch, just come in with lowered expectations. Here's the trailer- might be all you need to see about this film! Now showing on Peacock.
Next, we have the biggest R-rated Disney/Marvel (or any studio!) money-maker of ALL TIME: Wolverine and Deadpool. This movie was A LOT. I was not digging the first half hour, but then when Deadpool found his Logan after many tries ( I did say this flick was a lot), we then spend time in the TVA's (Hey Loki!) Void landscape, which was very reminiscent of the Mad Max sets. Seeing "The Crown's" Emma Corrin (Princess Diana), play the big bad, and who her character is related to (THAT i will not spoil!) was fun, as were the many cameos from other MCU franchises. I did enjoy Ryan Reynolds asides in breaking the 4th wall ("Where's the intimacy coordinator!?!"), and Hugh Jackman was great as the stoic, grumpy and BUILT/RIPPED Wolverine, but I feel my final grade may vary upon another viewing. As it stands now, I liked it a lot, and I can recommend it, but dang, it was A LOT to process!
Here's the trailer, the flick is know showing on Disney Plus:
HELL NO! This is only one step away from my worst nightmare: being on an enclosed plane with a dude smuggling over 300 tarantulas strapped to his body. Just imagine those creepy crawlers moving underneath this dude's clothing if ya were sitting next to him-YIKES! Thankfully he didn't make it onto the plane, but STILL! And for all those tarantula fans out there, yes, they are beautiful (and scary!), and mostly harmless, but I would bet all my imaginary Bitcoin in the world, these spiders (and centipedes (shivers!) were NOT in a friendly mood being contained and strapped to a smugglers body! I would be one pissed off spider once I was released! I can report all the arachnids were safely transported to a zoo and are being looked after for their well-being. Me, reading this story, not so much- I double-dosed my anxiety meds afte first reading this, and had a most delightfully effed up "sleep" later in the evening! (That would be sarcasm, with that last sentence!). https://people.com/man-caught-smuggling-tarantulas-centipedes-bullet-ants-strapped-to-his-body-peru-airport-8746811
I'll repeat again, with emphasis: OH HELLLLLLLL NO!
We shall finish with a more pleasing image as I will be pads deep with F! Vegas Grand Prix this weekend (and the Cal-Stanford Big Game) with everyone's fave Paddock puppy, Leo LeClerc, doing his morning stretches on his Daddy's yacht!
Oh, and the Vegas GP generated more tax revenue on its inaugural race last year than did the Super Bowl that was also held in Vegas- More on that in this link:
https://www.espn.com/racing/f1/story/_/id/42528514/already-commercial-success-f1-vegas-gp-deliver-more
Stay dry if you can and have a fun, safe weekend!
Comments