Coach on Crabtree's Birthday: Grow Up

Today is San Francisco 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree's 23rd birthday. Are there any special wishes you'd like to extend to Crabtree while doing a radio interview on the guy's birthday, coach Mike Singletary?

"He's got to mature, he's got to grow," Singletary said in a Tuesday morning interview with KNBR, the day of Crabtree's 23rd birthday. "It's a learning curve that he has to go through, he has to continue to mature."

"He has all the talent in the world, and he's growing. So I'm not going to throw Crabtree under the bus and start saying he's the reason we lost the game." Singletary said. "I'm not going to put that on him. Certainly we all had a part in the loss."

Plenty of 49er Faithful, however, are throwing Crabtree under whatever rhetorical buses are available to them. Of particular outrage is Crabs' performance on two key Seahawks interceptions.

The interception right before halftime bounced right off Crabtree's hands before being made available to Seahawk Jordan Babineaux. On the interception right after halftime, Crabtree got nothing but shirt on a comical air tackle attempt at Marcus Trufant as Trufant galloped toward the end zone with the ball.

Says 49ers blogger Daisy Barringer over at SFist, "If Joe Nedney (our 37 year old kicker) is going to lay out big blocks, you’d better bet I expect Crabtree to do the same."

It's your birthday party, Michael Crabtree, but when it comes two days after a 31-6 loss, fans will cry if they want to.

Joe Kukura is a freelance writer who will let you draw your own conclusion from Michael Crabtree having the same birthday as Amy Winehouse.

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