It was announced a few days ago that San Francisco 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree would receive some playing time this coming Sunday against the Houston Texans. It was rumored and then generally accepted as truth that Crabtree would be in on 12-15 snaps as a slot receiver to evaluate how the rookie could bring to the table for the team this season. Much like I expected however, it seems his role may be a bigger one than previously expected. It was said yesterday that he’ll likely be starting the game in place of WR Josh Morgan.

While I figured more playing time would be in order, I hardly expected him to get the nod over Morgan. It makes you wonder if Crabtree was just that good in practice or if Morgan was just that bad in the game. I’d suppose it’s neither and more likely the fact that the 49ers offense just needs to get something–anything going. What remains to be seen is how the rest of the team will handle the choice.

By that I mean of course, how will they take it when a rookie who held out for 71 days signs his contract and is immediately a starter on a team seven players deep at the position? How will someone like Arnaz Battle handle it? What about free agent signee Brandon Jones, who received a pretty large contract but has yet to do anything for the past couple of weeks. Many writers and fans speculate that there could be bad blood boiling but I’m not convinced. In fact, I’m not even duly concerned. Mike Singletary isn’t the kind of coach who will let his locker room get away from him, the players will rally around every decision he makes. One other thing to consider is the player that Crabtree is replacing in the starting lineup, Josh Morgan, has been pushing Crabtree to be better and willingly facilitated the spot to him.

How Crabtree will play remains a huge question mark, I don’t think anybody has quite an idea what role he’ll play in the offense on Sunday, of course he’s going to start, but how long will he play? How many passes will go his way, is he just a scapegoat, a distraction for the Texans defense to worry about while a healthy Frank Gore runs wild on their 24th ranked rush defense? Who knows, exactly? Crabtree is starting Sunday and the guy he’s replacing, Josh Morgan should see some snaps at just about every receiver position and even possibly on kick returns. Arnaz Battle, who is being pushed even further down the depth chart looks to be returning punts come Sunday.

In other news coach Singletary made some changes on the offensive line. Previously, Adam Snyder and Tony Pashos had been rotating at the right tackle position, but no longer. Tony Pashos was named the starter at RT and Adam Snyder is moving over one position to begin yet another o-line rotation with starting RG Chilo Rachal.

Rachal has been a huge disappointment on the line after playing well the last six games of last season after Singletary put him the starting lineup the week he took over interim head coaching duties. Snyder has always seemed more suited to play a guard position and it will be interesting to see if Rachal elevates his play to keep his starting job. Rachal is viewed as someone Coach Singletary is very displeased with and it will take some dominating play to beat out Adam Snyder who has, statistically been worse than Chilo this season, giving up 3.5 sacks to his 2 but has allowed significantly less pressures and hurry ups. No time frame on how long this rotation will last has been discussed as of yet.

The trading deadline passed today without the 49ers making any moves. None were really expected as the team was hardly mentioned in any trade rumors in the past weeks.