Not if the point is to employ as many engineers as possible.
The Martian atmosphere is much thinner than ours here on earth, yet it is still quite windy - making parachute operations not as easy as you think.
And the size of airbags needed for the big & heavy Mars Science Rover would be prohibitive. Airbag landing also then requires vehicle and its sensitive instruments being able to survive getting bounced and rolled around.
Yeah, the crane is a risk. But it is a mitigated risk - something similar was used for the Phoenix polar lander. And last time I checked, NASA is in the risk-taking business....