The 49ers are turning up the heat on Michael Crabtree. A day after coach Mike Singletary acknowledged that the 49ers were contemplating reducing their offer to their first-round pick, team president Jed York today said that he'd like to have a face-to-face meeting with Crabtree and his agent, Eugene Parker. York made the remarks during a radio interview on KNBR. He subsequently texted me and wrote that an invitation to Parker and Crabtree was made some time last week. He has not received a response.
Here are some salient quotes from the radio interview:
"We've extended an offer to his agent, Eugene Parker, and copied Michael, and we've said we'd love to have a face-to-face meeting with you guys," York told hosts Ralph Barbieri and Tom Tolbert. "And I think from my standpoint it's getting to the point where we can't worry about it - we're playing regular-season games. It's one thing to talk about it during the preseason. But during the regular season - you know, we went into Arizona, we beat the defending NFC champions and Michael wasn't there. Now that doesn't mean that we don't want Michael as part of our team - absolutely not."
"We want the kid to be here. And I'd love to have a chance to sit down and talk with him and his agent face to face and hear ... you know, it's one thing to have an agent say, 'This is what I want' and 'this is what he believes,' but so that it doesn't get personal and so there's no miscommunication, I'd like to sit down with Michael and with (GM) Scot (McCloughan) and (negotiator) Paraag (Marathe) and Eugene ...
Barbieri: ... Keep Deion out of it ...York: ... Deion Sanders works for the NFL Network and I don't know how much you can take into account what he said. I know he's been advising Michael, but I'm certainly not going to invite Deion Sanders to come out ...
Sanders, of course, gave a much-publicized defense of Crabtree's reluctance to sign with the 49ers on the NFL Network on Sept. 4.
-- Matt Barrows
