Though the Bay Area media continues to wait for a puff of white smoke to emerge from the 49ers’ facility, a league source tells us that progress has indeed been made between the team and receiver Michael Crabtree, the lone unsigned pick in the 2009 draft.
Nothing is done yet, but it could be coming soon.
And there’s a growing sense that the final deal will look to the untrained eye as if the Niners made concessions from the offer that had been on the table for months, but that the real numbers will show that Crabtree essentially got what he could have gotten in July.
If so, the holdout will have been a waste of everyone’s time.
Meanwhile, Matt Maiocco of the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat reports that Crabtree is able to run effectively, based on the manner in which Crabtree eluded Maiocco after the former Texas Tech receiver emerged from his meeting with team officials.
“Let the record show,” Maiocco wrote, “his foot is just fine. (His hearing might not be so good though, as my shouts went unanswered.)”