For a moment, both sides seemed blissful.

The 49ers drafted Michael Crabtree and gushed about his talent. The receiver called his new city a good place to be.
Since then, it’s been mostly angst.
What happened?
“Reality sets in,” Kelly Stouffer said.
Stouffer, 45, ought to know. He is one of the few people ever to stand in Crabtree’s shoes — that is, shoes with both heels dug firmly into the ground.
Stouffer, a star quarterback at Colorado State, was the sixth player selected in the 1987 draft. But he was unable to reach a contract agreement during a bitter standoff with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Stouffer is the last first-rounder to skip his entire rookie season — although Crabtree is threatening to replace him on the sit list.
The 49ers have reportedly offered the Texas Tech receiver five years and $20 million with $16 million guaranteed; rumblings are that Crabtree wants money commensurate with a higher draft pick, reasoning that he should have been taken earlier than No. 10.
In a phone interview this week, Stouffer, now a broadcaster for the Versus Network and ESPN Plus, recalled his own treacherous negotiations.
Stouffer’s advice to Crabtree is to make darn sure he believes in the reasons behind his hard-line stance. Faith in his own convictions is why Stouffer has no regrets.
He is at peace.
“Totally,” Stouffer said. “I honestly have never questioned it.”
Though his NFL career never got off the ground (2,333 yards, seven touchdown passes and 19 interceptions over five seasons), Stouffer said his struggles had nothing to do with missing a season.
He said he hasn’t been following the details of the Crabtree talks. But Stouffer said that during his own saga, media reports were usually wrong. He said the Cardinals tried to make him look greedy by leaking faulty information.
“It was startling for me just to hear how the negotiations go,” Stouffer said. “They build you up and draft you, and then they tear you apart in the negotiating process so they don’t have to pay you.”
His version is that the Cardinals lowballed him. Stouffer said St. Louis never even matched the offer given to Chris Miller, the third quarterback taken and the No. 13 pick overall.
“They thought I was some country bumpkin sitting out in a Nebraska cornfield,” he said. “But I had done my homework.”
Stouffer said the agency he hired, led by Frank Bauer and Mike Blatt, had a sterling reputation for getting deals done and he allowed them to handle the talks.
But as negotiations dragged on, Stauffer insisted on a direct conversation with Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill. In the least, the quarterback wanted a more detailed understanding of the team’s position.
“Instead, Bidwill told me, ’We don’t have to do business like everybody else. You’ll play for me or you will never play in this league’ — and that’s a direct quote.”
Stouffer hung up the phone, realizing he was doomed. Like so many other fresh-out-of-college kids, he moved back into his parents’ house and waited for work.
Reached for a response to Stouffer’s account, the Cardinals issued the following statement:
“Needless to say, the team has a much different recollection of the events of 22 years ago. From our side, it was clear that Stouffer was not getting the best advice. In fact he was represented by an agent (Mike Blatt) who a short time later was arrested and tried for the murder of a rival business associate.
“There were a lot of bizarre elements to it but suffice to say that if we could do it over, we certainly would have selected someone other than Kelly Stouffer with that pick.”
(Blatt, arrested for murder for hire in 1989, was set free after consecutive mistrials).
Stouffer’s rights were ultimately traded to the Seattle Seahawks, a swap made after the season as the quarterback prepared to re-enter the draft. St. Louis got Seattle’s fifth-round pick in ’88 and first- and fifth-rounders for ’89.
The 49ers can trade the rights to Crabtree, too, but not until March 1 with the start of the NFL’s new fiscal year. If the 49ers are unable sign or trade him, Crabtree will go back in the draft and the 49ers will get no compensation.
For now, the 49ers face a league-imposed deadline of Nov. 17 to sign Crabtree or his rookie season is done.
Stouffer said it’s not too late for Crabtree to salvage 2009. Contrary to popular opinion, he said, the 49ers locker room will be happy to see him whenever he arrives.
“All of those players, at one point in time, have been in a tough negotiation — or will be,” Stouffer said. “I guarantee you, when Michael walks in that door, he will be accepted in no time.”