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08/27/2010 - Commerce City, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Houston manager Dominic Kinnear summed up the Dynamo's 4-3 win over the Chicago Fire on Saturday night perfectly when he said, "Thank goodness for Brian Ching."
Ching scored a hat trick, including a spectacular bicycle kick, as the Dynamo snapped a 10-match winless run in Major League Soccer. Ching doubled his goals total for the season, and put Houston in position to make a playoff run.
Although Kinnear's team has struggled this season without midfielders Ricardo Clark and Stuart Holden, who are both now playing in Europe, Houston sits just five points behind the Colorado Rapids for the final playoff berth.
Houston (6-10-5) visits Dick's Sporting Goods Park on Saturday night to battle Colorado (7-6-7), which has just one win in its last 10 matches.
Ching has been the missing ingredient this season, as the absence of Clark and Holden - two U.S. internationals - has proven to be two huge voids to fill.
Kinnear added Saturday night that Ching always "leads by example," and for the U.S. striker able to score "with teams keying on him shows what a presence he is in the box for us."
Houston still has other teams to overtake in the standings, but Ching could be the difference-maker over the Dynamo's final nine matches. Houston lost six of its games during the winless skid, but a win over Colorado could give the team the confidence it needs to be a factor down the stretch.
Colorado has been struggling just as much as Houston, and considering its lone win during its current 10-game MLS slide was thanks to an own goal from goalie Jon Busch in a 1-0 win over San Jose, the Rapids are also in need of a spark.
The Rapids were on the verge of a season-changing result last week at Columbus after Pablo Mastroeni scored in the 45th minute to cancel an early goal, but the Crew responded with two second-half goals in a 3-1 win.
Coach Gary Smith can at least feel good that Colorado has earned nine points during its skid and still sits in a playoff spot. But with Houston among three teams within five points, the race is getting tighter each week.
"The feeling in the changing room was the guys felt they could go on and win the game," Smith said after the loss to the Eastern Conference leaders.
"Disappointing that we start the second half just appalling. We've not scored lots of goals in games all year. And that second goal was just gift-wrapped," Smith added. "Even then, I felt we might just get ourselves back in the game."
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In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.
And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.
Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.
So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.
Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)
The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.
As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.
The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.
In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.
Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.
And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.
So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.
There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.
So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.
And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.
There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)
Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.
Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.
Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.
So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.
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