Somebody Needs To Be Burped!

I love it when the new guy at the firm comes in at a higher salary than the guy who has been working there for ten years. Or how about the guy who gets promoted to the same position as you and gets paid more than you? Well, that's what happens in the NFL. There is no official rookie pay-scale as there is the NBA, but usually the way the system works is that when someone gets drafted at a certain spot in the draft, the team and player agree on what the slot was paid last year plus a little bump up. Well, someone forgot to pass the memo to Mr. Michael Crabtree.

Crabtree, by all accounts, was considered one of the top talents in last years drafts. Many expected him to go in the top five and potentially top three. Well, one injury and no-40-yard-dash-in-the-combine-later, he fell to the tenth slot and in the laps of the San Fransisco 49ers. Can you imagine what scene of bedlam was taking place in the 49ers draft room when he fell in their laps? I can see it now, grown men hugging, young girls dancing, prank phone calls to Al Davis congratulating him on passing on Crabtree and taking Darius Hayward Bay a few picks earlier. All was well in the front office, until the negotiating started to take place.

You see, Crabtree was drafted tenth, but he thinks he is better then those drafted ahead of him so he wants top five money. What he doesn't understand is that it doesn't quite work that way, but you try telling him that. He wants somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 million over four years. This just in, that would make him the highest paid wide-out in the NFL, for a guy that hasn't even taking a snap in the NFL coming off a knee injury. Of course the 49ers were not going to be pushed around and pay that type of money for the tenth pick. If he were the third pick they would pay him what the third pick should be paid. But, being the tenth pick they are going to pay him what the tenth pick should be paid. I'm curious, shouldn't Crabtree be grateful for the money he is about to be paid? I mean, with the guaranteed money he is going to get at the 10th pick he is set even if he were to break a leg on the first day of practice.

Well, November 17th is the date that we will see if someone is going to blink. That is the day the 49ers have to have him signed by or he will go back into the draft and this fiasco will start all over again, probably with another team though. And no, the 49ers can't just trade him right now, they have to sign him and then trade him on or after March 3rd. Well, I know if I were a player in the NFL, I'd be pissed. Here is someone just coming into the league and trying to get paid more than I am. Perhaps one day there will be a rookie salary structure. Maybe the players that actually have shed the blood, sweat and tears in the league will be the ones being paid what they deserve. If not, then the NFL should really stop calling themselves the National Football League and refer to themselves as what they truly represent, No F***ing Loyalty!

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