Since the trade fell through with the Baltimore Ravens, every indication has been that Maxx Crosby is going to remain with the Raiders, and Crosby was not one of the eight players ESPN’s Adam Schefter talked about as possible trade candidates going into this week’s draft.
Last week, Schefter talked specifically about Crosby’s situation and said he believes the price teams are willing to pay for Crosby has dropped below what the Raiders would be willing to consider.
“Maxx Crosby was the one who initially wanted out, and Maxx Crosby was given his wish, and Maxx Crosby didn’t pass the physical. And so Maxx Crosby went back, and now the Raiders didn’t want to move him then, and they agreed to do it only because it was for two first round picks. They’re not getting, I don’t believe, two first round picks again for Maxx Crosby,” Schefter said last week.
“They’re not going to get enough compensation in my mind to make it worth their while to trade him. Could we see it happen? Anything in the league is always possible, but I’m not counting on that.”
With the draft just days away, trade rumors haven’t picked up around Crosby and that could be a sign nothing is going to happen.
That’s the messaging that benefits everyone right now and Schefter seems to believe it’s the truth.
But something to keep in mind is that there are still teams that haven’t written off the idea of trading for Crosby. Those teams are being patient and the Raiders will almost certainly receive calls about Crosby leading up to the draft and even during the draft.
The general belief is that the Ravens didn’t find any new issues with Crosby’s knee during his visit with the team. They simply became uncomfortable with the information they already had considering they were giving up two first-round picks for him.
Every indication is that the Ravens became uncomfortable with the long-term outlook on Crosby’s knee
Listening to Crosby’s account of the botched Baltimore trade last month, it sounded like he said he never met with Ravens’ GM Eric DeCosta during his Baltimore visit, but someone within the Ravens organization responded to Crosby’s account and told ESPN that DeCosta did meet with Crosby toward the end of the visit.
“A source indicated Minter and other defensive coaches met with Crosby within minutes of him walking into the team facility,” the ESPN report said. “DeCosta, who was trying to keep his own free agents and sign others on the first day of the legal tampering period, met with Crosby later that afternoon.”
As Crosby said on his podcast, we might not ever get the truth about what really happened with the botched deal, but it certainly seems like the situation changed in Baltimore when Hendrickson became an option in free agency.
According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero in March, the data isn’t in Crosby’s favor as roughly half of surgeries involving a full meniscus repair don’t hold up for more than a year.
“I’m not a doctor, but in very simple terms, when you have a meniscus trim, that’s just cutting out the injured piece of the meniscus. Think of it like a hangnail. It’s bugging you. You get some clippers and you clip it off,” Pelissero said on the Rich Eisen Show.
“Meniscus repair would be like the really deep hangnail where it’s starting to bleed, and you know the skin’s going to fall off and you wrap it up with a Band-Aid and you try to keep it tight,” Pelissero continued.
“I talked to one doctor who’s very heavy into the injury data who said meniscus repairs have a 50 percent failure rate after one year, 80 percent failure rate after four years based upon their data. And again, that doesn’t mean the knee falls apart. It’s not like a failed ACL reconstruction, but basically it means you’re going to have less healthy cartilage in your knee. Your body cannot generate new healthy cartilage.”
For now, if there are long-term concerns around Crosby’s knee, the decision makes in Las Vegas appear willing to take on that risk, and Crosby is as motived as ever to prove his doubters wrong.
Assuming Crosby and the Raiders will be able to keep their vows beyond the 2026 season, the Ravens are scheduled to travel to Las Vegas in 2027. As it stands right now, that will be an intriguing game to watch.
x: @raidersbeat
If he puts up revenge numbers and stays healthy a team will be willing to give up 2 firsts and a player. And he will get traded.
Balt was fine with the trade until T. Hendrickson was still unsigned 2 days into Free Agency. They should’ve been penalized for pulling the rug out. Maybe a swapping of pick 14 and the Raiders 2nd rounder 36. Something to set an example. They knew he just had surgery and couldn’t pass a physical.
Not all the blame goes to Balt and DeCosta though. Spytek and the Raiders should’ve insisted on the physical being completed prior to Free Agency starting.