michael crabtree combine news

the texas tech wide receiver, a sure-fire top 5 pick in the april nfl draft, measured in at 6-1 and 3/8, not the 6-3 tech had listed him as. worse, turns out he has the beginnings of a stress fracture in his foot and will soon have surgery to insert a screw to stabilize it. so he might not run a 40 for scouts before the draft, when folks were anxious to put a stopewatch on him.

sure seems to me like he plays more than fast enough, like larry fitzgerald and anquan boldin and many, many other great wideouts of the past who didn't time well (see: rice, jerry).

but in this workout, combine-crazed world. with millions on the line, will crabtree fall out of the top 5 now? discus, please.

 

Fitzgerald is not good because of his speed.

Crabtree falls out of the top 5 and someone gets a great bargain for him. But he will never be as good as Larry Fitzgerald.

 

Not even the worst showing in Indy.

http://blog.al.com/rapsheet/2009/02/andre_smith_goes_awol_at_nfl_c.html

 

Obviously, the NFL sees some sort of value in the combine, or else why would they (or anyone) spend several days in Indy in February.

But I agree with Ragu. The best way to judge a player's talent isn't through a bunch of sterile tests. Rather, it's in actual games. Crabtree and Smith played in the two toughest conferences and played the toughest teams in those conferences. Judge them for how they played against their peers in October and not for how high they jumped in February.

 

What does Matt Millen think? He has a good feel for picking wide receivers.

Crabtree will be a player in the NFL regardless of height. I would look at him at larger version of Steve Smith.

 

Ragu completely nailed it, and I agree with mustangj. He'll drop a few slots and make some team very happy. I see no way he is not a productive NFL receiver. He actually reminds me a lot of Andre Johnson coming out of UM.

 

Combine, crapbine.
Workouts, smurkouts.
It's as some others have noted: it's what you do when the games begin and Crabtree has shown he can do it.
So many now get all caught up in the Mel Kiperism of evaluations. It keeps the draftniks and get-a-life fanboys hyped up, but sometimes all of this combine-draft evaluation stuff doesn't always give a final, true indicator of an athlete's ability.
I always remember what an old pro scout told me once about this much ballyooed draft prospect who was talking smack and bragging about how he was going to turn NFL defenses on their ears with his speed, moves, etc. The ol' codger who had evaluated his fair share of such "It's all about me" dudes simply looked at the guy and said: "Yea, son, but I wanna hear back from you after you've been hit by Ray Lewis."

 

the crab man has apparently opted to put off foot surgery until after tech's workout on march 26. don't know if this is wise, but he and his agents obviously feel getting timed in the 40 is more important than rehabbing in plenty of time for training camp.

'tis a shame, imo. everyone loves to give lip service to the right idea that how you play, revealed on game tapes, is the most important factor. yet this choice screams to all that players and teams remain married to the stopwatch. sad.

 

Ragu is also the man who predicted that we would be at $200 oil by now.

 

now the crab man denies everything to my man goose:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/stories/022209dnspocrabtree.3b3fb514.html

drama, drama, drama.