Last month, I put together a quick post about MIchael Crabtree's work with video-game maker Ubisoft and his new end zone dance. Crabtree decided on the dance as part of a deal involving the game "The Hip Hop Dance Experience", and every time he scores a touchdown, he does the dance and $1,000 is donated to the Boys & Girls Club.
Last week, I was contacted by PR people doing some promotion work for this, and they offered up a chance for a one-on-one with Michael Crabtree while he was at a Boys & Girls Club on Monday. Living in DC now, I obviously could not attend. However, after speaking with our good friend Steve Berman from Bay Area Sports Guy, he agreed to go and cover the event.
Michael Crabtree has not done a lot of one-on-one interviews with Bay Area media, so getting a few minutes to chat with the 49ers leading receiver struck me as a pretty good opportunity. The event included Crabtree teaching his dance to some kids, and Steve was able to get some video of that (embedded above). He also got five minutes with Crabtree and discussed a wide range of topics. Check out his transcript of the interview.
One of Crabtree's more interesting answers related to mobile quarterbacks:
When you have a mobile quarterback like that, what kind of adjustments to you have to make? Do you have to break off routes more often than maybe before?
Really you just play football. Backyard football. That's really what football is about. Guys like Drew Brees, they really do that a lot, but people don't really look at it like that. But they start scrambling, Aaron Rodgers, dudes like that, they really keep the play going for more than three to four seconds. That makes football that much fun.
Crabtree is excited about the upside of the offense with Kaepernick in place, and has clearly bought into the notion of getting a little better every day and keeping your nose to the grindstone.
He also took some time to discuss Randy Moss' impact on his play:
Another one of your teammates, Randy Moss, what has he brought? Has he kind of helped you, talked to you about your game and what he sees in you, helped you out this year?
I learned a lot. That's my dude, that's my big brother. I learn something new every day. Whether it's on the field or off the field. Blessed to have a guy like that around.
Is it preparation? When you see how he prepares week to week, has that sort of helped you this year?
That's cool, but it's much bigger than the preparation. Preparation is basically on you. How you prepare for a game. Obviously the business and the ability to do things on the field, see things on the field, that comes from experience. A guy like that, really helps.
It makes perfect sense that "Preparation is basically on you" while Moss could help more in terms of doing and seeing things on the field. When you've been around as long as Randy Moss, and played in a variety of offenses, you learn a lot. Veterans can stick around even after the physical skills start to slip because they can maintain a mental edge. Helping the receivers gain more of this mental edge could be the most important thing Randy Moss does for this team.
Big thanks to Cohn & Wolfe for setting this up, and even bigger thanks to Steve Berman from Bay Area Sports Guy for handling this interview. Always great to hear from 49ers players outside of the normal media sessions.