Biggs: York offers sitdown to Crabtree, Parker

Jed York wants to get involved now.

The president of the San Francisco 49ers, speaking in a radio appearance in the Bay Area tonight, has offered to meet with wide receiver Michael Crabtree and his agent Eugene Parker.

Matt Maiocco of the Santa Rose Press-Democrat confirmed that is the young York’s intention. Negotiations between the club and Crabtree have gone nowhere and there is speculation that the Niners have or soon will begin lowering their offer to the 10th pick in the draft. That would be done because Crabtree simply does not have as much value to the organization this season as he would have had he signed and gotten to training camp. He’s already missed one game and will be hard pressed to make a significant contribution as a rookie until the second half of the season, even if he shows up Wednesday morning.

York’s offer to a meeting—which is short on details like when he extended the invite—is a sign that the club wants to get this done. But it’s a complex issue and Parker is dealing (when the sides actually talk) with the only front office to recently get caught and punished for tampering in a league where it’s rampant. Certainly Parker isn’t going to let Crabtree meet with team officials by himself, not if he can help it, but a little dialogue here cannot hurt.

Crabtree is going to have to agree to be slotted between picks Nos. 9 and 11, but the many pages of clauses in these rookie deals are negotiable, and ESPN.com’s Mike Sando found that receivers in a Jimmy Raye offense struggle putting up the kind of numbers that it would take to maximize value in a rookie contract. We took a close look at the situation here.

A face-to-face meeting might spark some progress. Heck, a meaningful phone conversation at this point would be a start.

Stay tuned.

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