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03/09/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Here we go again.
The NHL has yet another chance to address the issue of blows to the head, and while it's never a good thing when a questionable hit brings the topic into the limelight, the latest infraction may been perfectly timed to affect change.
On Sunday, Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke leveled Boston Bruins star Marc Savard with a blind side hit to the head. Like several hits we've seen this year, it was vicious, and it once again brought to the forefront the debate on whether something needs to be done to better protect players.
Cooke's hit came just one day before the NHL's annual general manager meetings, putting even more pressure on the league to fix the problem. The GMs are currently gathered in Boca Raton and although it was already on the docket, the issue of head hits is really the only issue that matters now.
In short, they need to come up with some kind of an answer before the meetings conclude on Wednesday.
The league owes it players like Savard, who has been diagnosed with a Grade Two concussion as a result of the hit, to finally come up with something concrete that will in some way make players safer from head injuries. After all, Savard is a huge part of the Bruins' offense and may wind up missing the rest of the season because of Cooke's action.
Even Cooke's teammate, Sidney Crosby, seemed open to rule changes after Sunday's incident.
The Penguins captain and resident superstar said, "At some point there's got to be a clear indication from the league, because we've seen this so many times now."
And that's the most important thing for the NHL to come up with in Florida, some sort of "clear indication" as to what is illegal.
As of now, the NHL only considers it to be a dirty hit if an elbow is delivered to the head, and not if contact is made with a shoulder. All hits to the head have been banned in international play, and we didn't see anybody trying to cross that line during the Olympics, so maybe it could work in the NHL.
But what Crosby implied in his statement is what the NHL needs to come up with immediately -- a tangible rule change. It doesn't have to be a drastic change like the IIHF's zero tolerance policy on head hits. Not that we have to worry about that really, after all this is the NHL, which should never be confused with an organization receptive to big changes.
But, under the current NHL rules, the Cooke hit did not even draw a penalty, despite the fact that it caught a player from the blind side and was also delivered well after Savard released the puck. The officials apparently didn't think it was late and they saw that it was a shoulder hit so they let Cooke skate by without a penalty.
Yet when you watch the video, and see Savard lying unconscious on the ice, can you really feel that Cooke did nothing wrong? Is it possible that the GMs could watch that replay over and over and think that the rules of the game, as they are now, are sufficient to protect players?
A possible solution that is being kicked around in the blogoshpere is the banning of blind-side hits by the NHL. That would certainly draw a line against at least one type of dangerous hits.
After all, Savard wasn't irresponsibly skating with his head down, he was simply in the act of shooting when he was obliterated by a player he couldn't possibly have seen. Hardly seems fair.
A zero tolerance policy on blind-side hits, if enforced, would be a good starting point and would prove to the NHL Players Association that the league is serious about protecting its players.
The NHLPA has been way ahead of the league in identifying hits to the head as a major problem. Why wouldn't they be...the NHLPA has seen over 200 concussions reported by players over the last two and a half years and they have to answer to their members when it comes to medical coverage.
As far as Cooke's suspension, the penalty of games should reach double-digits, but as usual, the NHL brass will most likely fall short of expectations. Colin Campbell, the NHL director of hockey operations and the man in charge of suspensions, has routinely shown a lack of interest in making examples of players.
The league even failed to give Philadelphia's Mike Richards a single game for his notorious hit on Florida's David Booth earlier this season. That wasn't officially Campbell's decision, since he recused himself from ruling on the incident because his son Gregory plays for the Panthers, but clearly his underlings were just following the precedent the director has set time and time again.
Oh yeah, about the Richards hit, it occurred on October 24 and Booth didn't see action in another game until January 31. Not that the league knew Booth would miss over three months due to his concussion, but looking back, it seems impossible that Richards didn't have to sit out a single game for his head hit.
Missing the boat with Richards is just another reason why the NHL needs to seize their moment in Boca Raton. If they won't stand up for the players now, it seems unlikely that they ever will.
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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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