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While I wouldn't go so far as to accuse Michael Crabtree of faking an injury, I wouldn't be the first one to be baffled by his horrible "luck" when it comes to being able to participate in training camp and/or preseason games.
Yet again he has an injury that's caused him to miss, what, six practices now? I'm sure there are office pools going, taking bets on how many preseason games he'll participate in. (Incidentally, my over-under is one game, takers?) This will bring out droves of people questioning whether it's all just a convenient way to miss preseason games (maybe he doesn't want to get really hurt in a "meaningless game"?).
I suppose the trainers probably ask a lot of subjective questions to injured players about how the injury "feels today" or "Does this hurt? How about this?", etc. If you really wanted to miss time I guess maybe you could say it hurts more than it really does...I'm not a doctor, but when the people around me know less than I do about medicine, I act like I know everything (and I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express recently).
As with any player there are also people in Crabtree's corner, attributing the injury to bad luck or being "prone" to get hurt. I honestly don't have a strong opinion either way...but it is troubling to think of him missing yet another opportunity to have a full off-season (or most of one) to gain chemistry with his teammates...particularly his quarterback.
One would think that if Crabtree were doing this all on purpose that he would also realize that every "meh" season he turns-in takes money out of his free-agency pocket when that time comes...but again, I'm not saying he's guilty-as-charged.
Where do you stand on the issue?