Raiders’ Michael Crabtree ‘blessed’ to have a fresh start

Raiders’ Michael Crabtree ‘blessed’ to have a fresh start

At training camp and in the preseason, he is looking again like the sure-handed threat who 85 catches for 1,105 yards in 2012.

For the first time in years, Crabtree is healthy in body and healthy in spirit, done with what he thought was a lot of negativity on his old team.

“A lot of people don’t know that the Niners offered me a contract, I just didn’t take it,” Crabtree said.

With the Raiders, Crabtree immediately hit it off with quarterback Derek Carr.

Crabtree knew Derek’s brother, David, when they were teammates in San Francisco, and immediately liked Derek’s competitive nature.

Crabtree doesn’t want to take shots at any of his former teammates but sometimes he can’t help it.

Niners quarterback Colin Kaepernick actually is one of the few players still standing after a tumultuous offseason down in Santa Clara.

Crabtree insists he doesn’t pay much attention to all of the 49ers’ defections, retirements and arrests.

[...] Crabtree is playing well again, the team’s most impressive player at training camp.

“With an Achilles injury, you might feel like you’re healthy but the burst is not there,” said Crabtree, who turns 28 on Monday.

Carr echoes former 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh’s sentiment that Crabtree has the best hands he’s ever seen.

Crabtree also has been a mentor to first-round pick Amari Cooper, giving him tips and urging Carr to throw more passes to the rookie in the preseason.

Crabtree has a lot of little brothers and sisters, thanks to his Crab5 Foundation back in his hometown Dallas area.

The foundation has annual free football camps as well as opportunities for inner city kids to explore and develop their interests in the arts, music, other sports and academics.

“We’ll send the whole band to the Grambling-Prairie View game, fashion kids to New York, actors to Los Angeles,” Crabtree said.

After the games, he would run down to the field to get gloves and towels from players that he would wear in his games.

Which made it even cooler when Crabtree decided to sign a one-year, incentive-heavy deal with the Raiders.

Not that anybody back home could figure out why he would sign with a team that was 11-37 the last three years.

People were like, ‘Why would you go to the Raiders?’ But he had a real connection with Derek Carr and he just knew that was going to be his home.