When the preseason schedule came out, the evening of August 22 looked like a fun night for “told ya so’s” and backseat G.M.-ing in the Bay Area.
Niners at Raiders. Oakland’s rookie wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey -- the seventh overall pick and consensus choice for biggest reach in the 2009 draft -- on one side, and San Fran’s Michael Crabtree, the 10th overall pick and consensus choice for “guy who slipped too far,” on the other.
Well, it’s not going to work out that way.
Heyward-Bey will be there, Crabtree won’t.
The latter is in Day 23 of a holdout that’s linked in large part to his camp’s perception that he should have been a top-five pick and thus is superior to Heyward-Bey, even though Crabtree was drafted three spots lower than DHB.
Heyward-Bey’s deal with Oakland was for five years and $38.25 million, with $23.5 million in guaranteed money. In his MMQB column from earlier this week, Peter King wrote that Crabtree won’t settle for less than what DHB received.
But the time-honored slotting system used for signing unproven players to absurd contracts says that Crabtree should get a little less than what the ninth pick, B.J. Raji, got from Green Bay: Five years, $28.5 with $19.5 guaranteed.
A source with knowledge of the negotiations told me Wednesday, “Nothing’s changed.”
Which means Crabtree, utterly convinced he’s better than Heyward-Bey, continues to collect dust and reinforce the diva label that was affixed to him in the weeks before the draft.
And Heyward-Bey plays on.