Yahoo! Sports' Dan Wetzel eviscerates Crabtree for demanding to be paid as the top receiver in the draft, despite being taken three spots behind Darrius Heyward-Bey. Crabtree's argument is that he was the consensus top receiver coming out of the draft, and no matter what crazy Al Davis did at No. 7, Crabtree should be paid as such.
Wetzel's takedown is based on two prongs - (1) That it's outrageous for a rookie to threaten to hold out in the face of $20-odd million before he's ever caught an NFL pass, and (2) That pre-draft media and scouting hype means nothing, and salaries should be slotted by where players actually went regardless of why.
Whether (1) is true is irrelevant, obviously because one could use that argument against a rookie who was threatening to hold out for more money even if he was only asking for his slotted amount (assuming the team offered slightly less). Top rookies get paid big bucks and are entitled to negotiate with the team that drafted them. As for (2), I think it depends. Let's say Matt Ryan hurt his shoulder in early April, 2008, and doctors weren't sure whether he'd need surgery. As a result, he slipped to No. 15 overall. But what if Ryan regained all his former zip and accuracy in May, and was cleared as 100 percent healthy by doctors before he signed his deal? What if the team that drafted someone else No. 1 declared they definitely would have taken Ryan had they known? Should Ryan settle for No. 15 money just because that's where he was drafted?
If your answer is no, then you at least agree in principle that perception of what a player's worth merits consideration, and draft slot is not everything. In that case, Crabtree has a point.
Where Crabtree's conduct runs afoul of good taste is the hardball posturing of sitting out an entire year if he's not paid more than Heyward-Bey. What his representatives should be doing quietly and politely is affirm how glad Crabtree is to be playing for the Niners and say that he'd love to get to camp as soon as possible, but they feel he needs to be paid as the class's top wideout because everyone knows Davis has lost it. The Niners could counter, and Crabtree could settle for something in between the consensus perception and how the draft went down. In that way, he potentially gets a little more money, doesn't set himself back in camp and doesn't alienate management and fans. Crabtree has a good argument that he deserves to be the highest paid receiver. But the draft slotted him as the second one, and it's in his interest to roll with that - at least to an extent.