Braun leads Chivas USA to road win against K.C.

Soccer Betting Lines

07/10/2010 - Kansas City, KS (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Justin Braun scored two goals in the second half as Chivas USA defeated the Kansas City Wizards, 2-0, on Saturday night at CommunityAmerica Ballpark for its first MLS victory in more than two months.

Braun scored in the 56th and 87th minutes, helping Chivas USA end a seven-game winless run dating back to a 4-0 win over the New England Revolution on May 5. Braun leads Chivas (4-9-2) with six goals.

Kansas City (3-8-3) lost its third straight. The Wizards have just one victory in their last 12 MLS matches.

K.C. created better chances in the first half, but Davy Arnaud fired high, Kei Kamara was denied off a well-executed free kick by Chivas goalie Zach Thornton and Josh Wolff couldn't solve Thornton from a tough angle.

Thornton left the match with an apparent ankle injury after the save on Wolff, and Michael Lahoud followed with a half-chance that K.C. goalie Jimmy Nielsen saved to keep the match scoreless at halftime.

Four streakers ran onto the field at halftime but Braun turned heads after the break. Kamara turned a header wide early for K.C., then Braun scored the first of his two goals to send Chivas on its way to its second road win this year.

Braun latched onto a poor clearance from Wizards defender Jimmy Conrad and hit the upper-right corner from 17 yards to leave Nielsen no chance in the 56th.

Stephane Auvray should have tied the match with just over 15 minutes remaining but put a wide-open header into the side netting off a corner from just a few yards out.

Braun followed with his second goal, this time on a perfect shot from the edge of the area to the top-left corner to seal the win with three minutes left.

K.C. will try to bounce back Wednesday with its first road win of the year at the Columbus Crew. Chivas is off until July 24 when it visits Real Salt Lake.

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

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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