Albert Breer’s Deep Dive Into Maxx Crosby Situation

This situation doesn't really have a precedent .

All right.

Welcome in to the report for March 11th.

It has been an eventful 15 hours.

As you might expect, I've been locked in over that period of time on the Max Crosby saga and everything associated with it.

And so that's where we're gonna focus today's show completely and wholly on what's happening with Max Crosby, with the Ravens, with the Raiders.

And I can just say off the top, and I said this in one of our videos last night.

This situation doesn't really have a precedent.

And for me, this is my 22nd season covering the NFL.

I haven't covered a story like this.

Um, I've seen failed physicals before, most famously, Drew Brees in Miami in 2006.

You know, I've seen people back out of deals before.

Everybody will remember Frank Gore.

At one point, there was a CJ Mosley situation that was a little bit like that.

Um, we've obviously seen big ticket trades with multiple first-round picks.

Changing hands, the Jalen Ramsey trade, the Micah Parsons trade, the Matthew Stafford trade, um, but never the confluence of events of those sorts of elements all coming together the way they did at 8:02 Eastern last night when the Raiders hit send.

On a tweet indicating that the Baltimore Ravens had backed out of their deal with Max Crosby.

So our first order of business here will be giving you all the background and how all this went down and what's happened over the course of the last few months.

We'll buzz through the very beginning of it, so you have the baseline for it, which in October, game against the Chiefs, Max Crosby injures his knee.

At that point, after scans were done, it was determined and everybody was apprised of the fact that Crosby would eventually have to have surgery on his meniscus, but that he could play through it.

So he plays through for the next couple of months, he deals with pain.

On December 23rd, the Raiders order more scans.

Coming out of those scans, they determined that they're gonna shut him down for the rest of the year.

There's a communication issue there between, uh, between Crosby and the team.

And primarily, uh, you know, Alex Guerrero's involvement in that was, was, was certainly, you know, a, a hot button piece of the whole, the whole, the whole situation.

Um, Crosby felt like coming out of the meetings that he had, um, on December 26th, that the team was shutting him down to try to tank for the first overall pick, storms out of the building, um, shortly that doesn't play the last two games of the year.

Um, the Raiders stuck to their guns.

Crosby wanted to play.

The Raiders stuck to, to, to what they had said, which was we're shutting you down for the year.

Crosby soon thereafter, this is 8 weeks ago, has a full meniscus repair.

Um, that puts him on target to be cleared to play football again, June, somewhere in June or early July.

Um, and quietly goes in and asks for a trade.

And, you know, his messaging to the, to the Raiders at that point was, I want this to be respectful.

I want to maintain my legacy within the organization.

I want this to help you guys too .

You know, he still had loyalty to ownership there.

He's very close with Mark Davis.

So, the Raiders at the combine and in the time since worked to do a trade, um, they wind up finding a bunch of, uh, uh, of big-time offers.

More than a quarter of the league was, was involved.

Plenty of teams offered first-round picks as or as part, part of, as part of the package to try and get Crosby.

Um, the Ravens ultimately go to the two first-round picks.

Now, here is where the new information comes in.

As they were putting together, putting the final touches on what this trade was gonna look like on Friday morning, the Raiders did give the Ravens, um, did give their trainers permission to talk to the Ravens Ravens trainers.

This is standard operating procedure.

They'll trade medical info ahead of a trade.

Any questions that the team that's training for the player has to ask, the training team will answer.

Um, they pass along scans, they pass along MRIs, all of this information.

Generally, it's an open book.

And because they go through that piece of the process, it's very, very rare that a team trading for a player will find something in the physical that didn't show up during those discussions ahead of a trade being finalized.

So, that happens.

Max Crosby has an event on Saturday, um, so he can't get to Baltimore, but they agree, we'll bring you in Monday morning.

And we'll have you, we'll do the physical.

We'll introduce you after the trade is made official on Wednesday.

So on Monday morning, he flies across the country, gets to Baltimore early Monday evening.

First thing Tuesday, goes and has the physical done, goes to the physical, actually leaves the facility, and then um the call comes in that they're going to fail him on his physical.

So, what does it mean to be failed on a physical?

That's the other part that I think people need to know here.

This is not a black and white thing.

Um, this essentially is the NFL is an NFL team giving a player a score.

And a lot of it is based on risk assessment.

For example, in the draft, if there's an injured player, a team doctor may give a player a score that's, you know, says we're comfortable with you, you.

Mr.

Coach, you, Mr.

GM, taking this player in the 4th round, but not the 1st 3 rounds, or we're comfortable with you taking him in the 2nd round and not the 1st round.

Well, the same thing works for veteran players .

If Max Crosby were being traded for a 7th-round pick and he, he was due $5 million in the fall, I, I think that it's reasonable to think that the Ravens would have passed him on this physical.

But obviously, there's a lot at play here, 21st-round picks.

Um, $30 million a year over the next few years.

The prospect that Max Crosby is gonna come back to the table, um, after a year, this is his last year of guaranteed money, and ask for an extension if he does play well, these all come into play.

My understanding is the Ravens did have a problem when they, when they, when they looked at the knee and it was a question of longevity.

So, now you look at all of this, right?

Like, and so, you know, if you're the Ravens, it's, you know, we got this question of what this is gonna look like maybe in 2028 or 2029.

And for the Raiders, you know, they've obviously already moved on, but the Ravens are looking at it and saying, all right, so we're bringing him in, we're giving up two first-round picks for him, we potentially could give him an extension after this year.

Are we comfortable with all of that?

If it might only be for 1 year or 2 rather than 4 or 5 years.

And so that's where some of the moving parts come in.

And the Trey Hendrickson thing is a piece of this as well that we will get to in a minute.

And that's why some teams, other teams, not the Raiders or Ravens, felt like there was some, some, some sense of buyer's remorse potentially where they look at it.

And they could say, and again, this is other teams, not the Ravens or Raiders talking , but some other teams looked at it and said like, well, yeah, like this at least looks like the Ravens looked at the physical, looked at the longevity issue, looked at Trey Hendrickson being available, the price dropping on Trey Hendrickson, and thinking, OK, well, we can get Henderson for a little less financially than what we, we, what we would be giving Crosby.

We'd be giving up no picks.

And we can move forward that way.

Again, that's other teams speculating on this, but that's some of the stuff that's out there across the NFL right now.

So, that's the background.

Um, the second piece of business, the fallout for the Raiders.

This is not good.

This is a complicated situation, a really bad result for the Raiders on the surface at least.

Um, they spent a ton of money, uh, in free agency on Monday and Tuesday.

Um, they went out and they signed Tyler Linderbaum from the Ravens.

Interestingly enough, they went and they got, uh, Cody Pay from the Colts.

They got Quay Walker from the Packers, they got Ncoby Dean from the Eagles, they got Speedy Naylor from the Vikings.

So, they bring in this big free agent class, they re-signed a couple of their own guys and Stokes and Koontz on the assumption that $30 million approximately in cash and cap was coming off of their books, which gave them the financial flexibility.

So this creates a little bit of a financial logjam.

They also now are without the 14th overall pick, and they're without the 1st-round pick for next year.

Very complicated situation for the Raiders.

So, how do the Raiders move forward?

Well, at 6:00 a.m. this morning, Max Crosby walked through the door and walked through the door with the intention of doing his rehab and rejoining the Raiders and recommitting to the Raiders because that's the situation he's in.

The Raiders actually proactively called Max Crosby when they got word from the Ravens that the trade was called off.

To try to reconnect with him and say, you know, we view this as a point for us to move forward.

You don't know what the future's gonna hold 1 month from now, 2 months from now, 6 months from now , but we're comfortable moving forward with you on our roster.

And this was as some other teams made calls to check in with the Raiders on whether or not they were gonna take another swing at trading Crosby.

So, For right now, it looks like the best course of action for the Raiders maybe going forward with Crosby and they're comfortable with doing that.

Here's the other thing.

That'll score them a lot of points with players as Clint Kubiak tries to build his program.

You're talking about trying to get guys to commit and be all in on what you're doing and buy in.

Well, if you have a star player's back like that in a situation like this, I do think it goes a long way towards building the kind of culture.

On top of that, They also will honor all the commitments that they made to Linderbaum, to pay.

To Walker, to Dean, to Naylor, to Stokes, to Koontz, to Linderbaum.

They are going to honor all those commitments that they made to those players.

Again, this is the sort of thing that will give you some credibility, if you're Clint Kubiak and trying to build a new program.

And so, Now Max Crosby walks into a situation where the defense that he's gonna be playing on looks much different than the defense last year, with the additions of Kawati Pay, of Quay Walker, of Ncoby Dean, and he has one of the guys he's closest to in the Raider building and Robbie Leonard as his defensive coordinator, promoted from being the defensive line coach.

He's got a good relationship with Clint Kubiak.

He's got a good relationship with the GM John Spytek.

There is at least the pieces in place now for him to go forward.

Is there some fence mending that needs to happen with Alex Guerrero and some other people?

Sure, 100% that's got to happen.

But for Max Crosby, you're looking at this, you go forward, OK.

This is where we're at.

You know, everything happens for a reason.

He never wanted to leave the Raiders in the first place.

He wanted to be committed to turning it around.

He had just gotten sick of the amount of turnover that had been there and the amount of BS that he had to deal with, but he could look at this and say, maybe now I get a chance to be part of the change that I've been trying to effect for the last 7 years.

Maybe I can be.

The, the agent of change that I've always wanted to be.

And that's poten that's potentially on the table for him and the Raiders now, particularly if they, particularly if they wind up hitting on the first overall pick with presumably, Fernando Mendoza.

Well, the Raiders still less?

Listen, well, look, here's the thing, they don't have to shop him.

Those calls are gonna come in.

And so, what are teams willing to offer?

I don't think they're gonna move much off the price.

Um, I think the first-round pick would still need to be involved, and the flip side of this is after the Ravens found the issue that could have a chilling effect on Crosby's market where teams might be a little bit.

A little bit nervous about going in on Crosby, seeing that another team question his longevity like the Baltimore Ravens have.

So, to me, the best move, best move for the Raiders right now, let the calls come in, assess it, but go forward with Crosby as part of your, your team.

Which is where they are right now at 11 o'clock Eastern, 8 o'clock Pacific.

My sense is that, that, that, that Max Crosby and the Raiders are moving forward together now, um, with, of course, the potential that anything can happen and all options are still on the table going forward, but I, I think Crosby is at peace with the idea that he could be a Raider going forward.

Um, And the third order of business is the fallout for the Ravens.

The Ravens lost 7 starters, Linderbaum being one of them in free agency.

Uh, and essentially, the, if you, if you look at the net of all of this, they've still lost all of those guys.

All those guys, now they could circle back on one guy or another guy or whatever, but my sense is they're gonna wind up losing all seven of those starters.

So, they lose those 7 starters.

Now, instead of having Crosby, they've got Hendrickson as, as, as their top pass rusher, and they have both, they have the 1st-round pick that they were gonna trade away this year, the 14th overall pick, and their 1st-round pick for next year.

And so how does that look?

Well, part of it depends on what you get out of Hendrickson and whether or not Hendrickson can be the, the, the, the sort of game wrecker that, that Crosby was.

And this is a guy who had 17.5 sacks in 23, 17.5 sacks in 24, and then a really weird sideways season with the Bengals where he fell out of favor there, um, after taking a huge raise from the Bengals.

This opportunity became available because the Hendrickson market wasn't where the player, the agent hoped it to be.

Sitting there right between $25.

27 million dollars.

He winds up doing a 4-year, $112 million deal with Baltimore, which averages out at $28 million per year.

He was hoping to get over $30 million.

There are some incentives that might be able, that that might get him there, but as for right now, that's where he's at.

The, the Ravens should get a motivated Hendrickson.

They have a ton of pieces on defense.

None of that changed .

The, the, the, the core is still in place.

Roquan Smith, Nnamdi Matabuke, depending on how he, where he is coming off his injury, Kyle Hamilton, Nate Wiggins, Marlon Humphrey, they're still a really good team in place.

And then on offense, of course, you've got Lamar Jackson to build around.

But is this gonna change the way the 30 teams that weren't involved in this, look at the Ravens?

That certainly could wind up being a piece of this.

So, anyway, I know I've rambled here for a while.

We covered a lot of ground, um, and we hopefully gave you like a little bit of a better idea of why things turned out the way that they turned out over the last 15 hours or so.

Um, can't tell you what the next 24, 48, 72 hours are gonna hold, um, but it can't be as crazy as what just happened, at least I hope it isn't.

Um, and we will be back, um, tomorrow with a mailbag edition.

So if you got any questions on Crosby or anything else that's happened over the last week, feel free to, to send them along.

You can put them down below here on my YouTube page or you can hit us up on social media at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert R Breer on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram.

Appreciate you guys coming out.

We will see you tomorrow.