As the 49ers and receiver Michael Crabtree continue to have, by all appearances, no discussions aimed at working out a contract and getting Crabtree on (or at least near) the field for Week One against the Cardinals, it looks like Crabtree is getting ready to play football somewhere.
UFL, anyone?
According to Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee, ESPN’s Trent Dilfer recently spent time throwing passes to Crabtree. The former quarterback said that Crabtree was sick of catching balls from the machine that tried to kill Stuart Scott.
“He’s perfectly healthy,” Dilfer said, adding that rumors of lingering problems with Crabtree’s surgically-repaired foot are “garbage.”
“He looked good. He looked very fit,” Dilfer added.
Dilfer said he did not discuss the lingering holdout with Crabtree.
The workout occurred in the Bay Area, an encouraging sign for the team in light of the fact that Crabtree is a Dallas native. Basically, if/when an agreement is reached, Crabtree will be ready to go since he’s already in the vicinity of team headquarters.
But it’s still not known when or if a contract will be signed. And, as Barrows points out, at some point the 49ers might start reducing their offer, given that Crabtree soon will be missing games. Though he’s likely not sweating the forfeiture of game checks derived from the rookie-minimum base salary, the 49ers will be less inclined to give him the kind of guaranteed money that’s currently on the table if they won’t have him for the number of games for which he would have been available if he’d signed a contract in July or August.
All that said, the fact that Crabtree is working out in the Bay Area suggests that he’s ready to play -- and that he might soon take the deal that has been available and get to work.