Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh dies

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07/30/2007 - San Francisco, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Hall of Fame football coach Bill Walsh, the architect of the great San Francisco 49ers teams of the 1980s, has died after a long battle with leukemia. He was 75 years old.

The 49ers issued a statement Monday afternoon, saying Walsh died at his home in Woodside, California with family at his side.

Walsh built the foundation for the great San Francisco teams, creating an innovative offensive system that would become known as the "West Coast Offense."

The 49ers were one of the NFL's laughingstocks in the late 1970s, but Walsh quickly turned around a franchise that went 2-14 in his first season into a perennial contender that won five Super Bowls between 1981 and 1994. He was the coach of three of those teams (1981, '84 and '88), before turning over the reins to George Seifert, who won championships in 1989 and '94.

In Walsh's 10 years as head coach, the 49ers posted a regular-season record of 92-59-1 and earned seven playoff appearances. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993.

Walsh also coached on the collegiate level at Stanford -- in 1977 and '78, before he went to the NFL, and again from 1992-94. The Cardinal had a record of 34-24-1 with three bowl victories during his five years.

Before his first stint as Stanford's head coach, Walsh spent 21 years as a collegiate or pro assistant and semipro or high school head coach.

Walsh began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at his alma mater -- San Jose State in 1956, then spent three years as a high school head coach before moving on to the college ranks.

From 1960-62, he was the defensive coordinator for California, then moved on to Stanford as defensive backs coach for three years. In 1966, Walsh had his first taste of pro coaching as offensive backs coach with the Oakland Raiders.

Next came a one-year stint as head coach of the semipro San Jose Apaches of the Continental Football League before an eight-year run as offensive coordinator of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Working with the legendary Paul Brown in Cincinnati, Walsh began to cultivate his offensive genius. He was passed over for the Bengals' head coaching job when Brown retired and spent the 1976 season as the offensive coordinator with the San Diego Chargers.

Finally, in 1977 at the age of 45, Walsh was named the head coach at Stanford for the first time. The Cardinal went 17-7 with a pair of bowl victories in two years before the 49ers came calling.

San Francisco was 2-14 the year before Walsh arrived and 2-14 in his first season. Things began to turn around in 1980 with a 6-10 campaign before the breakthrough season of 1981.

With Joe Montana at the helm of a dynamic offense, the 49ers finished 13-3 and beat the Dallas Cowboys in a memorable NFC Championship Game -- highlighted by "The Catch" -- and went on to beat the Bengals in Super Bowl XVI.

A 3-6 strike-shortened season followed before an NFC Championship Game loss to Washington after the 1983 season.

The Niners then, arguably, had their best-ever team under Walsh in 1984 with a 15-1 regular-season record. A 38-16 thrashing of the two-loss Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl XIX at Stanford Stadium capped the remarkable campaign.

Three first-round playoff losses followed before the 1988 team finished 10-6 and won Super Bowl XXIII against Cincinnati with a 92-yard, final-minute drive.

Walsh, soon after the 20-16 victory, tearfully announced his retirement. He stayed with the organization for a short time in the front office, then returned to coach Stanford in 1992.

The Cardinal went 10-3 in Walsh's triumphant return, capping the season with a bowl win over Penn State. Records of 4-7 and 3-7-1 followed before Walsh called it a career.

Walsh is survived by his wife Geri and two children.

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

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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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