play0:39Raiders: Ravens ‘backed out’ of trade for CrosbyRaiders: Ravens ‘backed out’ of trade for Crosby
play0:55Schrager: Trey Hendrickson to Cowboys ‘does make a lot of sense’Peter Schrager joins Pat McAfee to discuss what Trey Hendrickson’s free agency market will look like.
‘Wild … unprecedented’: Schefter reports on Ravens nixing Crosby trade (1:20)Adam Schefter reacts to the news of the Ravens backing out of their trade for Maxx Crosby due to medical concerns. (1:20)
Schrager: Trey Hendrickson to Cowboys ‘does make a lot of sense’Peter Schrager joins Pat McAfee to discuss what Trey Hendrickson’s free agency market will look like.
Peter Schrager joins Pat McAfee to discuss what Trey Hendrickson’s free agency market will look like.
Did the Ravens just get cold feet and back out because they changed their mind?
Which teams would be interested in trading for Crosby?
What happens next for the teams and players most directly impacted by the rescinded trade?
What happens next? Well, let’s get there in a moment. I want to break down what’s happened here from both sides, and then we can get to what it means for the Ravens, Raiders, Crosby and the rest of the NFL. The only thing more interesting than the original Crosby trade might be undoing one of the biggest swaps of the past decade four days later. Let’s try to make some sense of this and what comes next.
Jump to: What happened? Did the Ravens get cold feet? Will Crosby still get moved? Where could he fit? Who else is impacted?
In this case, the Ravens were obviously facing a very important, franchise-altering decision. They were both trading two first-round picks for Crosby and essentially committing to paying the guy who was supposed to be their new star edge rusher nearly $94 million over the next three seasons. Crosby was coming off a season that ended via injury, with the 28-year-old suffering a meniscus injury early in the year and playing through it before eventually undergoing season-ending surgery.
The timing of the trade only made things worse. Both sides wanted to have a Crosby deal done before the weekend and the start of the legal negotiating period on Monday. The Raiders were in position to negotiate with the widest range of teams before free agents started flying off the board and teams filled their needs on the edge. The Ravens needed clarity on what their budget would look like with or without Crosby as a number of their standout players hit free agency.
While it doesn’t typically happen in high-profile trades, we do see signings impacted and even wiped away by failed physicals. These teams have both had a notable signing fall by the wayside over the past 15 years. In 2017, the Ravens signed Washington wideout Ryan Grant to a four-year, $29 million deal with $14.5 million guaranteed, but a physical discovered that a late-season ankle injury was more concerning than the team expected. Baltimore backed out of the deal.
At the end of the day, nobody outside of Baltimore’s building can ever really know for sure whether the Ravens were strictly reacting to Crosby’s physical, simply changed their mind or some combination of the two. I would argue that the preponderance of the evidence points toward the former. If the Ravens do sign Hendrickson Wednesday afternoon, though, you’ll understand why conspiracy theories will be spreading like wildfire around the NFL.
Raiders: Ravens ‘backed out’ of trade for CrosbyRaiders: Ravens ‘backed out’ of trade for Crosby
The Raiders needed the picks more than they needed Crosby, given how far away they are from contending. Crosby was going to finally get to play for a winner and a perennial contender. This could have been a win-win trade.
What are the alternatives? Let’s lay out a few potential scenarios for what a new Crosby trade could look like:
At that point, though, I have to believe that the Raiders would simply call things off. The organization seemed ready to move Crosby, but this wasn’t a situation where the Raiders were going to be willing to simply take the best available offer if what was on the table wasn’t any better than a Day 2 pick. It was always going to take some sort of premium for the Raiders to move their most popular and successful player.
It would be awkward welcoming Crosby back, but if the Raiders can’t land a first-round pick, they would have to bring their veteran edge rusher back into the fold for 2026. They could always explore a trade at the deadline or after the season if Crosby returns to his usual form and plays well next year.
Who’s left? There’s no obvious frontrunner, but then again, the Ravens weren’t exactly the favorites to land Crosby a week ago, either. In no particular order …
The Jaguars were reportedly in Crosby discussions earlier this offseason, only to come up short of Baltimore’s offer. They don’t have a first-round pick to offer the Raiders in 2026 after sending that to the Browns in the deal to move up for Travis Hunter, and that likely cost them in relation to other offers and opportunities.
The other Jaguars player who would undoubtedly interest the Raiders is wideout Brian Thomas Jr., who would give presumptive first-overall pick Fernando Mendoza a young No. 1 receiver. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Tuesday that the Jaguars aren’t interested in trading Thomas, but the Crosby news could change things. If the Raiders prefer picks, though, the Jaguars aren’t going to be a great fit.
The Lions have been quiet in free agency, with former Panthers center Cade Mays as their only meaningful addition at the moment. Al-Quadin Muhammad and Marcus Davenport are both free agents, leaving a significant hole across from Aidan Hutchinson on the edge. The Lions have the 17th pick in 2026, which would be in the same ballpark as the selection the Ravens were sending as part of their deal. And I don’t need to tell you how Crosby and Dan Campbell would fit together.
For the Lions, though, they might have bigger concerns elsewhere. Taylor Decker was granted his release, and Detroit’s rebuilding an offensive line that wasn’t up to its standards last season. The 2023 draft class just became eligible for extensions, which could mean significant raises for Jahmyr Gibbs, Jack Campbell, Sam LaPorta and Brian Branch as early as this offseason. I love the fit on paper, but Crosby might be too expensive for Detroit.
The Bills made a big splash by acquiring DJ Moore from the Bears, a deal which added $24.5 million to their bottom line in 2026 and 2027. They still need to rebuild on defense, where Joey Bosa and AJ Epenesa are free agents on the edge. Buffalo’s already committed to Greg Rousseau at one starting spot, but Crosby could step in on the other side, giving Buffalo the star pass rusher it has craved for years.
The Bears freed up all of that cash as part of the Moore trade. When I wrote my mock trade column last month, I had the Bears shipping Moore to the Raiders as part of a deal for Crosby, using the savings at wideout to help add all the money owed to Crosby over the next three years. I thought the Bears would only need to send one first-rounder alongside Moore to get that deal done, but in light of what the Ravens offered, that seems low.
Is a receiver who turns 29 before the year really the best return for Crosby given how far the Raiders are from contention? Probably not. If they get to June and haven’t been able to get a Crosby deal over the line, though, a swap involving Brown (and some draft capital) heading to the Raiders for him will be the rumor of the summer.
Let’s start in Vegas. There have been suggestions that the Raiders might be in a dangerous cap situation after going on an early-market spending spree under the pretense that they weren’t going to have Crosby’s deal on the books. There aren’t many teams that can just add a $35.7 million hit onto their cap unexpectedly right before the start of the new league year and remain cap compliant.
Unless there’s something seriously wrong with Crosby’s medical picture, the most likely scenario will see the Raiders trade Crosby again, but this time for something less than two first-round picks. That’s not ideal, but it doesn’t materially change the short-term plan for the Raiders in 2026.
Even if the Ravens were willing to ship out two first-round picks for another player, there really isn’t anyone on the market who would justify that sort of deal. Shopping that sort of draft capital will free up a lot of players, but I don’t see a dominant game-wrecker available who is worth making that level of trade.
Schrager: Trey Hendrickson to Cowboys ‘does make a lot of sense’
Let’s start with the simple facts. Every NFL signing and trade is subject to a physical. Nothing’s official until players pass those physicals. Obviously, each team’s comfort with the wear and tear that they see on football players depends on a variety of factors. Nobody’s going to pass a physical with a torn ACL, but teams might be more willing to overlook concerns if they’re signing a 35-year-old veteran to the minimum for a playoff run in December than they are if they’re signing a player to a massive contract in March.
Even though the teams agreed to the trade on Friday, though, the deal couldn’t be officially consummated until the start of the new league year on Wednesday, by which point Crosby would need to pass a physical. That felt like a formality until it wasn’t. If the trade had happened in early April or in the middle of October, the two sides could have gotten the physicals done immediately and finished the deal in a matter of hours if they negotiated quietly enough. Here, there were several days between the decision to make the trade and the decision to undo it, and those happen to be some of the most consequential days of the NFL calendar.
That’s a $94 million question. You don’t really need to guess what the Raiders are implying happened here. The Ravens knew Crosby was recovering from meniscus surgery. He’s 28 years old, and one of his calling cards as a pro has been playing a staggering number of snaps. Since entering the league in 2019, Crosby has played 6,449 snaps. He has the two highest single-season defensive snap totals of any defensive lineman — having played 1,038 snaps in 2022 and 1,037 in 2023 — and four of the top 21 over the past seven seasons. The Ravens were never going to go into a physical for a player who has worked as hard as Crosby over the past few years and discover that things were perfect.