How Stupid Is This?

It never ceases to annoy me at the greed players have, but rookie wide receiver Michael Crabtree takes the cake. He and his agent Eugene Parker tried to manipulate the draft system by sitting out the season and getting more money next year, but in a rare case of justice served, it has backfired on them. Last time I checked, Crabtree has still never played an NFL game (He hasn't even played competitively since January), he's missed all of training camp and the first four games of the season, and he's staging this kind of holdout? He wasn't even the first pick of the draft (as if that would justify things). He was taken #10 overall by the San Francisco 49ers. "He has talent!" people will say. So what? As far as I'm concerned, his biggest talent is that he's a complete idiot.

Want proof? One of Crabtree's "advisors" is none other than NFL Network annalist Deion Sanders, who once again proved how much of a moron he is by blathering on the air that two other teams were interested in Crabtree, which led to 49ers owner Jed York to file tampering charges against the New York Jets. Crabtree pretty much had no choice but to sign because, according to an NFL source, this development was going to kill Crabtree and Co.'s chances to buck the system. “I don’t know if anything would ever have been proved, but I can tell you this: People were running from this mess,” the source said. “They didn’t want to have anything to do with it. They didn’t want to be associated with it. I think Crabtree and [Parker] would have had a really tough sell with any team next year for a lot of reasons.” Makes sense (That's the only part of this saga that does).

Here's where it gets fun: Eugene Parker also represents Deion Sanders and now Sanders has to answer a lot of questions about his involvement and his job with the league could be in jeopardy. And Parker also looks pretty bad, even if he had no contact whatsoever with the NFL in this case. But here's where it gets stupid again: At the signing, Crabtree brought in that legendary financial guru M.C. Hammer (?!) of all people, to act as an advisor! That all by itself should show everyone what we're all in for with Michael Crabtree. What was Hammer going to demand, that Crabtree be allowed to wear parachute pants during the game? With Crabtree's choices of Sanders and Hammer to advise him, imagine what kind of ingenious decisions he'll make on the field.

The call here is that even if Michael Crabtree does become a Pro Bowl-caliber wide receiver, he'll wind up going down the same path that many other stupid, greedy, talented athletes have, meaning that if he doesn't get in any major legal trouble, he'll express unhappiness with his contract every season and go from team to team trying to glom his way onto a Super Bowl champion (right Deion?) only to wind up on a team that's desperate for instant publicity because they don't have a good team to promote (Right T.O?).

So, here are my early holiday wishes for this lovely occasion:

1) Michael Crabtree falls flat on his face.

2) Deion Sanders get the boot.

3) M.C. Hammer takes out a loan and signs up for a money-management class (and pays back the loan!).

4) Eugene Parker gets out of the sports agent business and takes an equally credible job as a televangelist.

Hallelujah!!