Brown's FG lifts Texans past Colts

Football Betting Lines

12/24/2006 - Houston, TX (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Ron Dayne rushed for a career-high 153 yards and scored two touchdowns, and Kris Brown booted a 48-yard field goal as time expired, as Houston stunned Indianapolis with a 27-24 victory, the first win in 10 all-time meetings.

David Carr completed 16-of-23 passes for 163 yards with a touchdown for the Texans (5-10), who ended a two-game slide. Dayne also surpassed the 100-yard rushing mark for the first time since the 2001 season, when he was a member of the New York Giants.

Vonta Leach caught his first touchdown pass of the season for Houston, which scored the game's first 14 points to take control early.

Peyton Manning went 21-for-27 for 205 yards and three touchdowns for the Colts (11-4), who have lost four of their last five. Manning also surpassed the 4,000-yard passing mark for the seventh time in the last eight seasons, setting a new NFL record.

Marvin Harrison hauled in eight passes for 112 yards and two scores while Joseph Addai ran for 100 yards for Indianapolis, which has already won the AFC South championship for the fourth straight year. The Colts could have secured a first-round playoff bye with a win and a Baltimore loss.

After Indy tied the contest at 24-24 with just under three minutes left in the fourth, Houston's Dexter Wynn returned the kickoff 38 yards to the Houston 39. Carr then moved the Texans down to the 33-yard line, setting up Brown for a game-winning field goal attempt. After the Colts took two timeouts, attempting to ice the kicker with three seconds left, Brown stepped up and split the uprights with a 48-yard field goal to win it for Houston.

The Texans scored on the opening drive of the game to take an early 7-0 lead. Dayne capped a 10-play, 61-yard drive with a three-yard touchdown up the middle. The key play on the drive was a 25-yard pass to Mark Bruener while Dayne had 21 yards rushing.

After recovering a Dominic Rhodes fumble on the following drive, Houston put together a nine-play, 47-yard drive that ended with Dayne barreling his way across the goal line from six yards out for his second touchdown of the game with 5:46 left in the first.

With less than a minute left in the opening quarter, the Colts got on the board and made it 14-7 after Manning connected with a wide-open Harrison for a 37-yard touchdown.

Indianapolis evened the score at 14-14 with 8:16 left in the second stanza after Manning found Aaron Moorehead open just over the goal line for a nine- yard touchdown pass.

Houston went into halftime with a 21-14 lead after Carr connected with Leach for a three-yard touchdown reception with just 16 seconds remaining in the first half. The Texans marched 75 yards on 14 plays during the scoring drive that spanned eight minutes.

With 6:08 left in the third quarter, the Colts pulled to within 21-17 after Adam Vinatieri split the uprights with a 33-yard field goal. Vinatieri's three points highlighted an 11-play, 65-yard drive.

Brown extended Houston's lead to 24-17 with 6:54 left in the contest after hitting a 42-yard field goal. Brown's field goal ended a mammoth drive for the Texans that went 51 yards on 15 plays and lasted almost 9 1/2 minutes.

Manning and the Colts though tied the game at 24-24 after Harrison hauled in his second touchdown of the game, a seven-yard reception over the middle of the end zone with 2:41 remaining.

Game Notes

The Colts had won all nine head-to-head meetings with the Texans all-time, including a 43-24 home triumph in Week 2 this season...Dayne has five touchdowns over his last four games...Houston wide receiver Andre Johnson had four catches for 48 yards and...The Texans outgained the Colts in total net yards, 354-319...The Colts close out the regular season next Sunday at home against the Miami Dolphins while the Texans host the Cleveland Browns in their season finale.

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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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