Just five months ago, Maxx Crosby was reportedly requesting a trade from the Raiders, but after the deal fell through with the Baltimore Ravens, every indication has been that Crosby is committed again to the team that drafted him.
After everything that happened around him in the last six months, the consensus seems to be that Crosby will come back more motivated than ever, and one of his former teammates, Gerald McCoy, confirmed that storyline this week.
“Maxx Crosby has a point to prove. He’s a little pissed off,” McCoy said on the Rich Eisen Show.
“Actually, he’s a lot of pissed off. I was just with Maxx in Vegas. He has a point to prove and Maxx is extremely upset and he’s going to have these guys on the mission.”
To that, Eisen followed up like the polished host that he is, and asked McCoy who Crosby is upset at.
“He loves the Raiders, for one,” McCoy answered.
“But he was traded. Okay. Then he was given back. So it’s almost like they saying, ‘We don’t really need you, but we need you.’ And then the other team is saying, ‘You just kind of lost a step. We don’t really trust it.’ Maxx is out to prove a point. I’m Maxx Crosby for a reason and he’s going to bring the guys with him.”
Based on McCoy’s comments, the Raiders aren’t entirely off the hook from Crosby’s perspective. But if that’s accurate, it’s an odd position to take considering it was Crosby who requested a trade from the Raiders at the end of the season.
From the Raiders’ standpoint, if Crosby plays well at the start of the season, they can circle back and probably get a trade offer similar what the Ravens backed away from in March. Or if the Raiders have the mindset Adam Schefter believes they have, Crosby could end up being a Raider for life.
Whatever the case, it sounds like Crosby is angry at the world going into the 2025 and that probably won’t bode well for anyone in the way.
Schefter on the possibility of Crosby staying with the Raiders
“Some people wonder if he’d still be on the market. I don’t see that,” Schefter said on the Adam Schefter podcast this week. “I see him staying in Vegas, helping this team and being a Raider for life, and we’ll see how that plays out.”
There aren’t many, if any, higher authorities in the industry than Schefter, but it’s worth keeping in mind that Schefter also said Myles Garrett wasn’t going to be traded.
Team insider thinks the door is still cracked open for potential Crosby trade
The California Post’s Vinny Bonsignore has been one of the leaders of the charge on trade rumors around Crosby, and Bonsignore reported this month what would be considered a “suitable offer” if the 49ers were involved in a deal.
On the Raiders flagship radio station three week ago, Bonsignore reminded the audience that Crosby’s knee injury was nothing like the knee injuries suffered by Patick Mahomes and Tyreek Hill in 2025.
“It’s important to remember this wasn’t a devastating knee injury,” Bonsignore said on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate.
“He probably could have played for those last couple of weeks. Obviously, he wanted to play in his best interest. He didn’t. He got the surgery. So we can’t classify this as, let’s say, what Patrick Mahomes is coming back from. That was like a multi-leveled, just devastating kind of a knee injury. What Tyreek Hill is coming back from is a much higher class. So very good news for Maxx Crosby that he obviously got the surgery, did the right thing, and is well on his way to recovery. It’s not something that was ever considered any sort of super serious type of an injury.”
But at the end of his segment on Crosby, Bonsignore dropped a comment that was loaded with trade implications.
“A lot of people are interested in that knee,” Bonsignore said. “I can tell you that. A lot of different ways this can go.”