McCloughan tired of being the wimp

SANTA CLARA

Mike Singletary danced around the tampering issue at his Monday news conference. In case you’re not up to speed on the brouhaha, it’s been reported the 49ers filed a tampering charge with the NFL claiming the Jets contacted Michael (Holdout) Crabtree and maybe told him to reject the eminently fair Niners offer because next year the Jets will come up with a whopper.

If that’s true, it stinks. It’s also against the rules.

Question: If Crabtree is engaged in hanky-panky should we start calling him Crabgrass?

Asked if the 49ers filed a tampering complaint, Singletary, surely following orders from above, said, “You know, that’s something that the league is going to handle internally and I’m not going to get into that. We’ll let that play out, the process. I’m not even going to go there. We’ll let the league handle that.”

I thought Singletary was talking about a tampering complaint but he was vague, clearly want to drop the issue. I wanted clarification. So I read Singletary’s quote back to him — “I’m going to let the league handle that.” I asked what ‘that’ meant.

He said, as far as a tampering charge against the Jets, “I’m going to let the league handle that point.”

Based on this byplay it’s pretty clear the Niners filed tampering charges against the Jets, otherwise what “point” are Singletary and the Niners letting the league handle? I mean, they’re not getting involved with the league office to decide what Halloween costumes they’ll wear in a few weeks.

So I’m saying Singletary all but admitted the Niners are angry at the Jets for contacting Crabtree, and they’re taking action.

But that’s not the main point. There’s something way more important and it has to do with the 49ers’ standing around the league and in the league office. They don’t have much standing. They used to stand tall but now they slump; they’re the nebbishes of the NFL.

People who matter in the NFL perceive the 49ers to have a weak front office. It has a lot to do with general manager Scot McCloughan. He is a first-rate talent evaluator, a scout, if you will. But he has not proved he can be a GM with clout, a GM with presence. Bill Parcells has presence and power. McCloughan is a GM in search of Parcells-like presence and power. And everyone knows it. And McCloughan doesn’t have the respect he needs.

Last year, the Niners were accused of tampering with Bears linebacker Lance Briggs. Commissioner Roger Goodell ruled against the 49ers and they lost draft choices. McCloughan insisted he acted within the rules but he lost anyway, and you could interpret that case as the league’s gesture of disdain for the Niners. They could be bullied. They were bullied. The NFL made an example of them.

There is a word for a team that serves as a discipline example for all the rest. Wimps. A collection of wimps. So that is the background to the 49ers’ tampering action against the Jets. It is a sign the wimp is pushing back. It is a sign the wimp, in fact, doesn’t want to be a wimp anymore and refuses to get bullied by the Jets, by the commissioner, by anyone.

You must understand the Crabtree camp has perceived the 49ers as wimps all along. They never would have pulled this holdout stuff with the Cowboys or Patriots, no way. But they perceived McCloughan and his minions as malleable, assumed they would blink and finally wimp out.

It is to the 49ers’ credit they haven’t caved. No one who cares about the team wants them to give into Crabtree and his greedy — yes, greedy — agent.

Final point: Singletary is having a positive influence on McCloughan, and here’s how. When you listen to Singletary you realize he emphasizes the same thing over and over again: No one will push the Niners around on the field. The Niners will be tougher than every team they face. It may take time for this toughness to reveal itself, but reveal itself it will, as it did in the first two games.

In other words, his team will not be wimps and certainly won’t take crap from anyone.

McCloughan is doing the same thing in the front office, taking his cue from the team on the field. He’s ordered Crabtree to sit in the corner and ponder the meaning of his life, and he’s told the Jets not so fast. The wimp fights back.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular go to the Cohn Zohn at blog.pressdemocrat.com/cohn. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.