When Will the NFL Draw the Line?

Michael Crabtree is slowly becoming one of the most despised players in the NFL and he hasn’t even stepped onto the field yet.

In case you haven’t heard, yesterday it was revealed that Michael Crabtree is willing to sit out the entire season if he is not given the contract he feels he “deserves”. Well if he really got what he deserved, he’d be suiting up for a UFL team this fall begging an NFL team to take him back.

All this has caused one single question to race through my mind all day. When will the NFL draw a line? Over the last few years, rookies have been turning the NFL into a circus with their huge contract demands and absolute absurd attitudes. Say you were fresh out of college and you were just hired by a big corporation. Would you hold out for a contract as big as some their best and most tenured workers? No, you take what you get and set out to better yourself, but apparently pro sports forgot about that a long time ago. Rookie contracts currently dominate most team’s payrolls (except for the Giants. $97.5 mil for Eli are you kidding me?) and it only gets worse year after year.

What will it take to end it all? One GM slapping a rookie across the face and making him understand that he is not bigger than the game, he does not deserve to be payed like a seasoned veteran, and at this point in his career he is nothing more than an unproven rookie.

Therefore, for the first time in my life I am rooting for the 49ers. If they show that it is possible to not give in to rookie’s demands, it’ll be a huge step towards making the NFL rookie contracts make sense again. As for Crabtree, well if he honestly thinks holding out an entire football season will get him the money he demands, well, I guess you can say hello to Maurice Clarett 2.0 (without the prison).

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