Grab Bag: Valkyries inaugural playoff run, Mac Jones strarts as QB for Niners, SF Giants power outage vs LA and is the freshman Cal Bear QB a rising star? Plus Emmys stuff!

San Francisco Giants: Well, perhaps I should write more harsh things about my teams, cuz after I roasted the SF Giants two posts ago, https://colbymichaels.wixsite.com/getyourgameon/post/grab-bag-late-summer-edition-valkyries-make-herstory-us-open-slam-time-cal-bears-kick-off-college

The team has been one of the hottest teams in this early September, andare in the n=mix for the 3rd wildcard spot!! The Giants hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers at Oracle this weekend, and Fridays game was a pitching duel, as starter Justin Verlander, at 39 years old, has found his groove lately, taking his team into the 7th, where he gave up a solo home run to tie the game, 1-1. At THIS moment, I crab again about the lack of offense on the Giants hitters part. The game went into extras, and in the 10th, with the bases loaded for the Giants, and with Patrick Bailey at the plate, this happened:

the bat flip! the bat flip! the bat flip! chef's kiss!

The stadium went nuts, I went nuts at home, (sorry new neighbors), the team went nuts. A dramatic way to start this series! Saturday's game was one to forget, as the Giants ace, Logan Webb had a meltdown in the 5th inning, where the Giants were leading 4-3, and when the 5th inning was done, it was 9-4 Dodgers, who went on to win 12-7. The series finale on Sunday was also a game to forget, with Robbie Ray giving up five runs, and the Dodgers going on to win the game, 10-2. The Giants then went on to drop two out of three in Arizona, and there is like, about 10 games left in the regular season.

Breaking! with the injury to my favorite new acquisition this season, Dominic Smith (pulled hamstring), the Giants are calling up their top rookie prospect, Bryce Eldridge to play first base and hopefully add some offense. Giants fans have been waiting to see Eldridge in the big leagues for a while now, and that time has come!

San Francisco 49ers: Mac Jones starting in place of the injured QB Brock Purdy in New Orleans against the Saints. Niners lose FB Kyle Juscyck in first quarter to a concussion, as well as their starting left guard, Jake Burch, so an already deprived offense of more starters.

Niners score first TD of the game, on a 14 play 80 yard drive that took almost EIGHT MINUTES before Jones found tight end Luke Farrell on an 11 yard pass for the first touchdown of the game and Farrell's career! Sadly, the new kicker Pineiro misses the extra point. First quarter ends Niners 6 Saints 0.

Pineiro gets his first chance as a Niner to make a field goal, and nails a 44 yarder! to increase the Niner lead to 9-0. The Saints came back though with a long drive of their own, and got a touchdown to make the score 9-7 with just 67 seconds to go till halftime! Mac Jones ran a hurry-up offense, Jones completed seven passes for 77 yards after the 49ers took over. He hit Jauan Jennings with a 29-yard pass on a third-and-6 play. Jones kept the chains moving with completions to Kendrick Bourne, Jace Tonges and Christian McCaffrey, and with 11 seconds left, Jones found CMC in the end zone for the touchdown, and the Niners led at halftime, 16-7.

Third quarter saw the Saints take advantage of a Mac Jones fumble and go 12 plays and 84 yards to score a TD , now 16-14, Niners. Late in the 3rd quarter, Pineiro made a 46 yard field goal to go into the 4th quarter up,19-14.

The fourth quarter saw Jones execute another brilliant scoring drive, ending with a 42 yard pass to Juaun Jennings, who ran for 23 yards for the touchdown! 49ers up, 26-14. Next possessions by the Saints though, found that penalty flags do exist, as the first half there weren't any, but the San Francisco defense made up for that, as several flags were thrown to give the Vikings excellent field position, but they missed a field goal, but were able to score a touchdown, on a 12 play, 71 yard drive that took six minutes, making the score 26-21 with six minutes to play! Each team's defense held their own, forcing punts, but it was New Orleans that had the ball with less than two minutes to go, and driving for the winning TD when the Saints went for it on 4th and 2, and the Saints QB got sacked, thus ending the game with a San Francisco 49ers winning 26 to 21! Oh, and CONGRATS to linebacker and fan favorite Fred Warner, who was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week! (He got one of those Saint's fumbles I mentioned!).

Back up QB Mac Jones with 3 touchdowns and 279 passing yards and the win is a good start!

California Golden Bears: The Minnesota Golden Gophers came to Berkeley to face the Cal Golden Bears, in what was described as a match up between college football's two best defenses. The halftime score reflected that, with the Bears leading 10-7. Cal freshman QB Jawon-Keawe Sagapolutele ( I have to go back and check the spelling every time!) was accurate when he had the chance, threw for 241 yards in the first half. The Gophers defense though, held Cal to under 20 yards rushing, so that run game would need to improve in the 2nd half. In the 3rd quarter, at one point, Cal rushing stats were minus 13! The Gophers had a well executed seven minute (!!) drive to get their first lead of the game, but just before the ned of the 3rd quarter, JKS lead the Bears downfield, finishing with a pass to tight end Justin Mini, who would NOT BE DENIED and spun and bounced and barreled his way into the end zone! Cal up 17-14 as the game head to the 4th quarter! Cal defense forces Minnesota to try a 51 yard field goal, which went wide right, so the Gophers long drive comes up empty! After a 3 and out, Cal punts, and the Gophers punt returner muffthe point, Cal recovers at the 5 yard line. after two tries, JKS finds a WR Jordan King so, so alone in the end zone, by himself, that he could've binge-watched "Wednesday" befire he caught the ball for the easiest touchdown JKS has ever thrown! Cal up, 24-14, with seven minutes left. Cal ate some time o the clock. and got a field goal and the end score was 27-14 Cal victory! They are now 3-0! My notes are: The Gophers are a true challenge team. Cal has a very special QB in JKS, who threw for 3 TD's , but needs to learn when to throw the ball away to avoid the three costly sacks he endured, a great defense, but Cal, after being in the negative on rushing yards at one point, they finished with 61 yards rushing...this is an area the they need to improve on. Next week is a game against my partner's college SDSU...there may be a CAB (Cold Angry Bed) on that game! :)

Cal Bear freshman quarterback from Hawaii, Jawon-Keawe Sagapolutele !

Other notable college games. Georgia Tech upset #12th ranked Clemson, which now with two losses, will surely be dropping further down the AP Top 25. Most other Top 25 teams took care of business, but MY Game of the Week was between 6thh ranked Georgia and 15th ranked Tennessee, in Knoxville. The Volunteers have not beaten the Bulldogs in thier last eight meetups, so Vols fans packed the 109,000 seat stadium and the fans got themselves A GAME. Tennessee's offense was hot and cold, leading at halftime, then letting Georgia to come in and take the lead, to where it came down to the final play of the game where the Vols kicker could put it thru the uprights, and pandemonium explodes at this Knoxville stadium! The kicker missed the field goal, sending the game into overtime, where he did make a kick for the Vols to take the lead, but Georgia quickly scored the winning touchdown, which imitated the Walk of the Defeated of 109K fans to the exits, as Georgia now is 8-0 in this rivalry. My heart goes out to my sister Lisa and her partner Jenn on how this went down! SO close! Late came upsets, as due to a missed extra point 8th ranked Notre Dame fell to 16th ranked Texas A&M, 41-40, while 11th ranked South Carolina in a huge upset, lost to unranked Vanderbilt, 31-7! Oh, and UCLA Bruins FIRED their coach after just three games...brutal.

Golden State Valkyries: The Vals have made the playoffs, thats the good news; the bad news is they are playing a best of three against the best team in the WNBA, the Minnesota Lynx (lots of Minnesota in my post this week!). Before the playoffs started, Vals coach Natalie Nakase was named Coach of the Year, and Veronica Burton was named Comeback Player of the Year, and rookie Janelle Salaun was maned to the best All rookie squad! Congrats to all these ladies! Now onto the playoff games!

Only saw a little of this game, good thing I did, as the Lynx blasted the Vals, 101-72 in the first game of a three fame series. Game 2 is being played at Valhalla South, the San Jose Arena, as Chase Center was already booked. It was a spirited game, with ups and downs, (Vals held the Lynx to only NINE points in the 2nd quarter!), The Vals had a 17-point lead at one point, but the Lynx held Golden State to just 11 points in the 4th quarter and took the lead, 75-74, with the Vals having the last shot, which bounced off the rim to seal the Lynx victory and ending the Valkyries season. It will be a season full of positive though, as all the pundits picked the Valkyries for at most, 8-10 wins, which the Vals FAR surpassed that! Congrats to Coach Nakase and the Valkyrie's team for giving the fans at Balhalla the ride we didn't expect, and onto better things next season!

Culture Club: The Emmys handed out their awards, with Seth Rogan's "The Studio" on Apple TV pulling 4 awards; HBO also scored with"The Pitt" an ER drama that each episode covers one hour in the ER, winning Best Drama and Best Actor for Noah Wylie ( he knows an ER!). "Adolescence", which is on my watch list, was the big winner, scoring eight Emmys for the Netflix show, and also making history for the youngest actor, Owen Cooper, who was 13 at the time when they filmed the series, won Best Supporting Actor (he is now 15). Owen got a great surprise earlier in the day, when his idol, Jake Gyllenhaal, paid Owen a surprise visit! Cuteness overload ensued! For me, the two wins I wanted happened: Jean Smart for Best Actress in a Comedy for "Hacks" on HBO, wins her 4th Emmy, and Cristin Milioti won for her role as Sophia Falcone in "The Penguin" on HBO! She gave a great speech, and yes, this show is SO GOOD in a gritty type of format! Oh, and Stephen Colbert finally won Best Nighttime Talkshow Host!

Cristin Milioti win Best Actress Emmy for "Penguin"!!!!

Whew! That is a wrap for this post! Comment below either on the sports stuff or the Emmy shows! Ta!