Holding out hope Crabtree's greed leads NFL to something good

It's possible you're wrong about Michael Crabtree. Wrong about his greed and his arrogance? No, you're right about that.

But it's possible you're wrong to be angry about it. Or derisive. Or even dismissive. Whatever you are -- and for awhile, I was there with you -- it might just be wrong.

If Michael Crabtree stands his ground, will the NFL gain ground in curtailing rookie salaries? (Getty Images)

Hear me out, because wrong can be right. When the light bulb finally turns on above that empty space we call a cranium, and you realize where you went wrong with Crabtree, it's a liberating feeling. It's freeing. Trust me on this, because I'm there -- and you'll be there in a minute. It's like being cooped up in a three-piece suit all day and then finally, right before bedtime, getting to run around in your underwear. Fun, I tell you.

Crabtree, the 10th overall draft pick out of Texas Tech, has threatened to hold out for the entire year if the San Francisco 49ers don't give him the money he wants. He'll just sit out the 2009 season and start over with the 2010 draft, throwing away a year's worth of that crazy NFL money and also putting his development, and maybe even his entire career, in jeopardy.

Infuriating. This kid hasn't caught a pass in the NFL, but he wants to be paid like he's Jerry Rice. Since 2000, receivers picked in the top 10 have been more likely to be a colossal bust (Charles Rogers, Reggie Williams, Troy Williamson, Mike Williams, David Terrell, Koren Robinson, Peter Warrick) than anything else. But Crabtree wants to be paid like he's Larry Fitzgerald. It made my blood boil.

But then something occurred to me over the weekend, and it was a calming thought. It must have been like what Robin Williams felt in Good Will Hunting when he realized that, underneath the snarky math genius played by Matt Damon, was nothing more than a scared little boy. Williams had that realization, he told Damon, and then he "fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and I haven't thought about you since."

So ... do you want to know what occurred to me?

This:

Michael Crabtree could save the NFL.

That's not his goal, of course. He isn't so altruistic or classy as to endeavor to save an entire league. His goal is much more basic than that. He's trying to shove cash down his own pants, like he's the stripper and the tipper. Which is fine.

But along the way, he might just save the NFL from itself. So as far as Crabtree's 2009 holdout goes, my reaction has evolved from angry disbelief into outright giddiness. I'm now his biggest cheerleader. You go, Michael Crabtree. Do your thing. Hold out this week and next week and next month and the whole damn season. Please.

The shock of a yearlong holdout, and the fallout from that shock, is what I suspect it would take for the NFL to clean up one of the biggest financial messes in organized sports. Nothing much about salaries in pro sports make sense -- not the average NBA salary of $5.6 million, or the four different New York Yankees who have contracts worth more than $160 million each -- but the money spent on NFL rookies is as loony as it gets.

The NFL Draft is a big crapshoot, even at the very top of the draft -- Michael Vick, Vince Young, Alex Smith ... -- yet high draft picks often become the highest-paid player on their team. This used to happen in the NBA, too, until "Big Dog" Glenn Robinson broke the system in half after milking the Milwaukee Bucks for $68 million as the first pick in 1994. Within months, the NBA had a rookie salary scale.

Michael Crabtree could be the NFL's version of Glenn Robinson, although the usual suspects also figure to be involved in this cleansing process -- like deranged Oakland owner Al Davis and the hapless Cincinnati Bengals. Davis is the one who drove Crabtree to holdout insanity by drafting the wrong receiver, Darrius Heyward-Bey, seventh overall and then by giving Heyward-Bey a $38.25 million contract that is as far removed from reality as the space between Davis' ears. Typical Davis, though. He always gets the wrong guy. He drafted JaMarcus Russell too early. He signed Warren Sapp too late. He hired Lane Kiffin at all. Now it's Heyward-Bey.

Darrius Heyward-Bey is the reason Michael Crabtree has lost his mind. Crabtree went three spots after Heyward-Bey, but feels he's a better player. So even though he went 10th overall, he wants more money than the No. 7 pick -- even if Heyward-Bey already got way too much money for a No. 7 pick.

It's a cycle of crazy, and the Bengals are contributing by refusing to play along. And bless their hearts for that. The Bengals are refusing to use Oakland's splurge for Heyward-Bey as a starting point for their first-round pick, Andre Smith, which is why they're adamant that Smith, who was taken sixth overall, will get less than the guy taken seventh. So Smith is holding out, and this one could take a while.

But only Crabtree is talking about sitting out the entire season and starting over in 2010, and my reaction has gone from anger to joy. Really, I'm starting to dig this whole holdout thing. Crabtree clearly has some Terrell Owens in him, and unlike Owens, who didn't go nuts until his second or third season in the NFL, Crabtree is putting his psychosis on display right off the bat -- in time to get it fixed. Assuming the 49ers don't crumble and give him what he wants, Crabtree is in for a front-page lesson in humiliation. If that doesn't knock the T.O. out of him, nothing will. And even if he remains a prissy, selfish narcissist, well, he can always play for Buffalo. Those people will accept anybody.

Me, I've come to accept this holdout as serving the greater good. No. 10 pick Michael Crabtree is asking for top-three money, and threatening to sit out the season if he doesn't get it. Years from now, when we look back at Crabtree's impact on the NFL, I hope we can agree on the following:

That he was a Big Dog.

And you can read into that any way you wish.