Tuesday Morning Crabtree Watch - 9/22

Here's a new "feature" I'll try to comment on throughout the season - Michael Crabtree's current 'options' in the NFL:
  1. Sign with the San Francisco 49ers
  2. Sign with some other NFL franchise
  3. Hold out and re-enter the 2010 NFL draft

9 comments:

  1. Here are my thoughts to each option after week 2 of the National Football League:

    1) Jed York reached out to Crabtree's camp last Tuesday; I haven't seen an update on this story to determine whether or not Crabtree's camp has responded. Either way, he's not aiding his cause by being this difficult to work with.

    2) If the Niners have anything to say about this, and as Tim Kawakami pointed out yesterday, it seems as though they will, Crabtree's not leaving the Niners anytime before the 2010 draft.

    3) Since the season is so young, I'll avoid looking to the potential draft order to see if a top-drafting team would indeed take Crabtree, and merely link to Rodney Harrison's opinions on the issue as they're my favorite.

    Crabtree Status: Dood's stupid.

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  2. This is instantly my favorite running bit on FIWK. And yes, I just unnecessarily linked the main page of the blog.

    So what's your take on the Niners' claim that the Jets tampered with the Crabtree talks? That they are offering him more dough than the Niners and want to poach him?

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  3. I fully agree w/ Kawakami's points:

    "I think the 49ers filed the charges for a couple of reasons:

    -Jed York is not thrilled with Parker [Crabtree's agent] and truly believes other teams have gotten involved to make this more difficult for the 49ers to sign Crabtree.

    -If the Jets are indeed Parker and Crabtree’s main option at this point (we all thought it was Dallas, interestingly), filing tampering charges now could push the Jets away from Crabtree to prove they weren’t tampering over the last few months."

    Ultimately, with the public calling-out last week, and this move, I think the Niners are simply trying to show Parker for who he really is. Also, as many have pointed out, the Niners were in a similar "tampering" position last year with the Bears and Briggs - Briggs resigned with the Bears, so perhaps the Niners are looking for the same outcome with this move.

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  4. I think you need to clarify #2 that his rights need to be traded for Crabtree to sign with another team. What would another team trade for Crabtree? If I could get someone to trade me a first round pick for his rights...I would take the deal.

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  5. I'm with Royce - this just took FIWK (no unnecessary link) to the next level. I will drop a couple cents about Crabtree & next year's draft, though: think about the most important position in the NFL (QB). Think about who has to come out next year: Bradford. McCoy. Tebow. That's just the first 3 I can think of, and already Crabtree is on his way out of the top-5 picks.

    This whole Jets/tampering thing sure adds some drama, and I'm glad to see the Niner brass finally showing that they are committed to getting some talent on the field (or, at the veyr least, keeping the talent they supposedly have). If this were Papa York (John), he would have traded Crab's rights (even though he can't yet) to Washington for a 3rd round protected pick and a literal pile of garbage.

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  6. The Jets could also be telling Crabtree not to sign, saying that they'll draft him in 2010 and offer him a better deal than the Niners are currently providing.

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  7. I haven't followed the Crabtree situation too closely, mostly because it pisses me off so much it would be bad for my health. From where I'm standing, agents are the spawn of the devil - see Boras, Scott for ther examples - and Deion needs to stop talking to Crabtree. As a niners fan, the fact that we spent a high draft pick on someone who may never play for us is evidence of a huge problem in the way drafting and signing works, because ultimately it's the fanbase that it hurts.

    PS - Rodney Harrison is right the f*ck on.

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  8. Yeah the rookie pay scale thing is something Aaron always talks about too. I'm not really sure why the NFL wouldn't go to a sliding pay scale like the NBA uses? Could it be set based on positional averages rather than a straight per-pick scale, to account for discrepancies in positional pay?

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  9. Actually rookie pay in the NFL works for about 95% of draftees and signees. It's only the top 15 draft picks that can really handicap a bad team and prevent them from getting better. I would like the first overall pick to get paid a percentage greater than the first pick of the second round as the percentage the 33rd pick gets over the 65th pick.

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