Week 3 of the NFL has all but come and gone and the San Francisco 49ers are still without their number 1 draft pick Michael Crabtree. There has been no progress in the negotiations either. At this point, I’m starting to believe Crabtree when he says he’ll re-enter the NFL Draft in 2010. I never thought it would really come to this.

One thing we recently learned though is that Michael Crabtree doesn’t need the NFL’s money (at least for this year). His agent Mike Ornstein came out and said Crabtree has made over $750,000 from marketing/sponsorship deals. Crabtree has deals with Subway, Jordan Brand, Upper Deck, Topps, etc.

“It is not that he doesn’t want to play, but he is not under the gun to,” Ornstein said.

This actually explains a lot. I’ve always wondered how unsigned rookies and holdouts who make no money can still live the lavish lifestyle of an NFL player.

The San Francisco 49ers have filed an official complaint with the NFL league officials claiming the New York Jets tampered with their first round draft pick Michael Crabtree. The 49ers have been unable to make any progress in their efforts of signing him. San Francisco didn’t go into details about what the Jets did that was illegal, simply stating that this is a legal process and they don’t want to comment on it.

Rex Ryan, head coach of the New York Jets, on the other hand said this whole thing is “ridiculous”.

It’s possible the Jets could have reached out to Crabtree’s agent and said something like ‘hey if your client reenters the NFL Draft we’ll give him consideration with our first round pick’. This is all speculation though as we don’t know anything.

What we do know is that the 49ers are 2-0 without Crabtree and they have until early November to get him inked if he wants to play for this team in 2009.

The San Francisco 49ers co-owner Jed York has offered to meet face-to-face with unsigned first-round pick Michael Crabtree, but hasn’t had his phone calls returned by Crabtree’s agent, Eugene Parker. This whole situation is just a big joke. Why wouldn’t Crabtree even want to sit down with the owner to talk about his demands? This feels like a hostage negotiation with the 49ers willing to do their part, but Crabtree not budging.

We are now approaching Week 2 and Crabtree still is sitting at home watching all the games on TV. I hope to God he’s been working out and catching balls at some private camp or something to stay in shape. Even if he does get signed tomorrow, it would be weeks before he can suit up and play.

The 49ers gained some leverage last week though by beating the Arizona Cardinals. If they can prove they can win without him, then the value of that contract is going to keep going down.