Is Reconciliation Possible Between Crosby & the Raiders?

This is a little bit of an inside baseball thing, but just why I love Mike Florio Pro Football Talk.

So Rick Stroud, who is a legend , covers the uh Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times.

He wrote about Max Crosby and the Buccaneers today.

And then Florio aggregated it at Pro Football Talk and called it.

And I'm gonna loosely quote this, um, uh, uh, uh, a, a, a habitual act of reporter flag planting, just in case it happens so that they can say that they're ahead of the curve.

And I love Mike, but I also hate him for pointing that out because flag planting is one of my Favorite things.

And now informed flag planting, right?

Because I don't just flag plant and I'm certainly, I don't think Rick is just flag planting.

I mean, Rick has covered that team for, he was the one who first reported that Brady was going there, right?

Like I, I, I certainly don't think that he's just, you know, flag planting, but There is something about the idea of excellent when you know something and it's just not quite there yet, and you can write that little column to be like, what, what do you think about Max Crosby in Tampa?

And all of a sudden a couple of weeks later, it picks up and it snowballs and you can point to it and say, it happened for your first buddy, but I, I imagine there's a couple of those scenarios where if Max Crosby is truly on the move, Albert, his market will be robust.

He's everything you want in a player.

He's tireless.

He is team first.

He is maniacally driven.

I mean, he, he's gonna age well.

I mean, I, I don't know.

What are your thoughts on the Crosby?

There's just like a, uh, like, I think.

So this again, like I think this is gonna boil down to the relationships involved.

And like, I do think like the Raiders have done, um, I would say a good job of managing some of the fallout, the guys who are in the building every day.

So, like, I think, John Spitek, their general manager, has got like a good level of communication with, with Max.

You know, I think Clint Kubiak has done a good job starting to build a relationship.

They promote, um, Rob Leonard to defensive coordinator who Max is very close with.

So there are some of the pieces in place for reconciliation here, but there's still the history and everything that happened over the course of the fall, which was in October, he gets hurt, plays injured for Basically, the remainder of the year, everybody knows he's gonna have to have surgery after the, after the season.

They shut him down two games ago.

It like his thought is or it was intimated to him that maybe this has to do with them going after the first overall pick.

Um, creative roster management, I think was what we would call that.

Um, he gets pissed about it and so, like, you know, I, I think that That action at the end, you know, that communication issue at the end.

Between, between, uh, Max and the organization was there, and it created a scenario where Max, who's so loyal to the Raiders and so loyal to Mark Davis, started to have a wandering eye and started to look around and started to say, what is this gonna look like in other places, and started to investigate what might be out there for him.

And so I think like the question for everybody now, right?

The question for everybody now is, do our timelines match up?

He's another one, he's gonna be 29 when the season starts.

The Raiders are gonna draft a quarterback first overall, presumably, they're gonna draft a quarterback first overall, Fernando Mendoza.

Um, the roster is not there yet.

I think everybody there would acknowledge that they're probably not gonna be a real contender in 2026.

So now we're talking about, OK, like, let's say the quarterback is a good rookie year.

You build, you have a good draft outside of just Fernando Mendoza.

Now you got a foundation.

Now you get aggressive in 20207.

Now maybe you get up to the point where you're what Jacksonville was this year, right, in 2027.

And now, OK, now Mendoza going into year 3 into 28.

Now we're ready to compete, and now we're gonna get aggressive.

How much does Max Crosby have left at that point?

Is it worth the risk for Max Crosby to wait that long?

And on the flip side, are the Raiders better off with Crosby or the players that would come as part of a deal, which obviously would be loaded with picks, right?

In return.

So now, those guys who are on the roster in 28, maybe those guys are 24 years old rather than 31.

You know, like that's where the timeline question, I think that's where you have to take a real look at this from a timeline perspective, and they love Max, you know, and I think everybody, everybody has a really good understanding of who Max is and, and what Max is capable of, but like that part of it, I think is really, is really interesting.

And, um, you know, I, I, I think this is another one that's gonna heat up over the course of the next few days and it may sort of depend on, on what teams are willing to give up to get them.

You know, what's interesting about Crosby's market too, and I talked a lot to the Seattle coaching staff about this during the Super Bowl, was that I wonder if we are seeing the death of, or the aging out of your star edge rusher.

And the reason that I say that is because a lot of the guys on Seattle's defensive coaching staff said, the reason that we're so good is that You don't know where the rush is coming from and really who is the beneficiary of what we're trying to do, whereas if you have Miles Garrett, well, it's the same premise as a star corner, right?

You can throw away from him, right, and It's one of those things where it's like, yes, there's a predictability to that, but if you have Miles Garrett, it's like you're on the Tour de France and everybody else on the team is basically working to get that guy the yellow jacket, right, the yellow, yeah, and he's Lance Armstrong.

He's Lance Armstrong, minus the steroids, presumably, right?

I, I, I , you know, I don't want to make any, uh, judgments on that.

Although did you see him on the cover of?

looks good.

Miles Garrett swole.

Yeah, for sure, swole in that leather jacket, not accusing him of doing steroids at all, uh, just, just to be clear.

But, I think the, the interesting thing here is, and you can say that it's Moneyball or that it's finding the inefficiency or whatever it is, and I hate a lot of those platitudes, but it really is smart that, you know, I, I can have one guy that costs as much as Miles Garrett, or I can have 5 guys that I know don't give a shit.

That each of them are gonna have 7.5 sacks instead of one guy having 20, right?

And that they're gonna play together and like Seattle, what was interesting is it was almost the reverse of the Legion of Boom.

Like, if you talked to Richard Sherman or Cam Chancellor or any of those guys.

The secondary decoded Peyton Manning, and they had him dead to rights from snap one in that Super Bowl.

That was the defensive line in this.

They decoded the Patriots' offensive line, and you, you know, Adam Durda and, and Mike McDonald and everything, like, no disrespect to them, but a lot of the coaches on that staff said, like, we gave them a number of calls in that game.

And they self-diagnosed a lot of that stuff.

Like they were like, OK, this is what the offensive line's giving us, so we're gonna run A or B.

That was, yeah, that's, that's that, that's that scheme too, not to revisit the Super Bowl, but that is like I remember talking, you know, I talked to Weddell about this, who Weddell was sort of one of the godfathers, Eric Weddle, who played safety for the Ravens under Wink Martindale when they created this defense all the way back in 200 and what would have been 201818, right.

Um, and he's, he was saying exactly what you're saying, which is like, you'd have 4 guys up at the line and one's dropping, and the other one is, and the other one's coming.

And Weddell was telling me like what Wink did was he set up the scheme in a way where he legitimately could look over to CJ Mosley and say, swap.

And now all of a sudden the guy who's rushing is dropping and the guy who's dropping is rushing, you know, so yeah, that's kind of what you're getting at.

And, and, and what I mean by all that is that, is that more are our teams seeing that right around the time that Max Crosby is coming on the market.

And now you have, and, and, and I asked the Seattle coaching staff, I was like, what percentage of the NFL is doing, do you think, something closer to what you guys are doing versus, and, and, and he's, it's still low.

It's like 5%, 10% of the NFL.

Not a lot of teams are doing what Seattle's doing, but do more teams try to do that, Albert, and does that water down Max Crosby's market?

I think the thing about what you're talking about is that it's harder to sustain because you're talking about holding on to multiple players, multiple players, right, and like, so you have to kind of, and Seattle hit a sweet spot in that they drafted Byron Murphy.

There was, I, I like, I, I could tell you John Schneider was stunned that Byron Murphy was available when he was available, um, 2 years ago, you know, like in the draft, like he thought there was no way that he was getting to him.

Like the proverbial run the cart up to the commissioner , you know, it was one of those scenarios, um, so like you, you get Byron Murphy and then Byron Murphy hits his stride while Leonard Williams still has something left in the tank.

And the Cowboys cut DeMarcus Lawrence and you have Adden Durda on staff who work with them in Dallas, you know, and so like all these things happen and that's taking nothing away from the Seahawks.

But like that's also hard to sustain, you know, versus just having one great player and you just pay him.

So that's the, that, that's sort of the hard thing.

It's like, with the Browns, would you move off of Miles Garrett?

Well, no, you wouldn't.

You know what I mean?

Because the idea of having, now, it's different if you're talking about bringing that guy in, you know, and, and, and that's a fair discussion to have.

And I think like what you're talking about is, um, You know, it's like why, for example, some teams have started to value receivers over corners.

You know, it's hard to find a great corner.

The problem with having a great corner is the other team can just throw away from them.

Whereas the receiver, you can do more to get them, get them free.

And I think it sort of changes that , that dynamic because teams are doing more to take one or two great defensive players out of the game completely and having success doing it.

Um, certainly changes the philosophy for some teams and how they're building, right, yeah.

Uh, what does your gut tell you about Max right now?

Like, I think you and I can both sit here and say that it makes more sense to get rid of him, and the rebuilding timeline for the Raiders, like it all, like everything seems to line up, but, uh, what would you say come June, how likely is it that you think Max Crosby is still a Raider?

I think they're gonna trade him.

Um, but I don't think that they're gonna be backed into a corner to do it.

Um, I think he probably gets traded this week.

Early next year, I think, but like, again, like there's so many moving parts here and You know, I just look at it like I think, I, I, I look, I'm not, I'm not.

I'm not talking for Max here.

I want to make sure I'm clear about that.

Like I, I would just say, like if I'm looking at, if, if I'm Max Crosby in this scenario, What, going through what I went through the last couple of months does is it causes me to look at my football mortality.

And I talked about timelines, right?

He goes through the knee injury, he has to have surgery, right?

It's the 2nd straight year, he's finishing the season injured, just is what it is.

So there's that, he's turning 29.

This is going to be his 8th season coming up, believe it or not.

And You know, I, I think, and, and, and now like psychologically the door to being traded has opened.

So now again that wandering eye, he's looking around.

What could this team do for me?

What could that team do for me?

And I just think for him.

It's kind of one of those.

Either this is gonna happen for me now, or I got really buckle in and roll the dice that the Raiders are gonna be able to get this turned around.

And how many coaches has he been through and, and, and, and with the Raiders, Jon Gruden, Rich Bisacci, an interim coach is the only one he made the playoffs with Josh McDaniels, Antonio Pierce, Pete Carroll, and now Clint Kubiak.

I just, I don't know.

I just think like for him the time is right now.

The question I think is gonna become what can the Raiders extract for him, and I think it's gonna have like to me, like, and I don't wanna speak for anybody there again, but to me it would have to be a one and then some like so it'd be a first, I would have to come away with a first round pick and something else, uh.

Who makes the most sense for him?

That's what I was thinking about, right?

And I do, I googled my favorite thing, which is NFL standings.

I think I've googled it 4, 41,000 times over the last two years, but that's the, that's why the schedule that honestly, I'm pulling up some of my notes here, but that, um, that's why the stand, that's why the, uh, The like schedules do such great traffic on everybody's website because people are always googling it.

Yeah, um, I mean, you would say someone like the Chargers or the Chiefs, but obviously they're not gonna trade him within the division.

Um, can I give you a few teams just to chew on?

Hit me.

Seattle, Dallas, Chicago, Baltimore, Buffalo, New England, Philly, and the Rams.

Now, the Rams don't make a, I know a lot of people have talked about the Rams, and I think the Rams could be aggressive to do this.

They have 100% philosophically have leaned in on, we, we, we're going to invest in our defensive front over and over and over again with all the guys they've drafted.

My thing is Byron Young just had a great year on the edge for them.

They've got Jareverse on the other side.

I think Byron Young is eligible for God, I wish I had this in front of me.

I think Byron Young's eligible for a contract this year.

Um, so how does Max Crosby coming in screw up what you've already built there and not saying like he'd be a problem, but you know, just as far as like paying all of those other guys that are coming up, you know, anyway, so those are the teams that I, that I have written down.

And all of them, I mean, again, make some sense.

But I think in it, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not going down that road again.

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, no, no, no, he's from there.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because, you know what, what's the phrase, um, don't, don't tell me what you believe, uh, show me how you act and I'll tell you what you believe.

All right, so I think the Patriots make sense for him.

And I think if, if I, if I'm the Patriots, I would prioritize Crosby over Brown , um, you know, again like that could be part of your sliding doors thing, right, like where it's like, well then we just won't hang up, we already have digs hang on to digs, um.

Chicago Chicago would be great.

Chicago, I mean, that's what they've been looking for an edge rusher.

They've got Montez Sweat on the other side.

Poof, you know, you give they, they were in the, they were in the divisional round last year, very, I mean, they went toe to toe now the conditions were the conditions, but they went toe to toe with the Rams.

Now that's a team that's in a position to punch the accelerator and go for it, right.

That's a team that makes a lot of sense.

I mean, now we're talking.

I just, I think the idea of doing that, like Chicago would make sense to me.

I'm just, you can't, you can't sell me on, on Dallas, you just can't.

Uh, this is gonna be like, oh, we're gonna get another backup running back there.

Here, here's your offseason, ta da, we did it.

So Dallas, if you're giving up a first-round pick.

In your Dallas, right?

Then you've kind of gotten to level, it's not apples to apples, but you've sort of traded now Micah Parsons for Max Crosby and Quinnin Williams, right?

Uh, I don't know, which is another interesting element of it.

I, I don't know, I look, I, I, I think.

I would love to see him in Baltimore.

I don't know if that's, that's happening, um.

Buffalo, I just, their cap situation.

Um, does he fit like a 3-4 with Jim Leonard coming in?

It might not be ideal for him, although I'd say he probably fits any scheme.

The Eagles are interesting just cause it's the Eagles.

I don't know.

Um, I do love the uh.

I was trying to think of something.

I was like, well, if Max Crosby gets traded to Dallas, I'll do this show shirtless, which no one would want.

I mean, Seattle, I don't think they're gonna do it, but Seattle will just like shut down the league if they get him, you know what I mean?

Like that defense would be freaking incredible.

Um, the reason I don't think, I, I think John Schneider has learned some lessons from the last time around.

And they were, they were really, really aggressive the last time around.

And didn't they get Percy Hart?

No, Percy Hart, Percy Hart was on the championship team.

They went out, but they, but they continued to be aggressive, and they were aggressive and re-signed their own guys, and I think it sort of wound up.

They traded for Jimmy Graham, if you remember.

Um, I can't remember how soon after the Super Bowl that was, but it was relatively soon, right?

Wasn't Jimmy Graham there, what, maybe a year or two after the Super Bowl, if I have to look that up.

Um, they were, they did, they did do some aggressive things, and I think You know, I think there is a lot that they have, um, they have learned from that.

Oh, I'm trying to think of like, where do I want him to go?

Like I want him to be with maybe like Jesse Minner.

I think that would be, uh, I, I, I would like to see him paired with Jesse Minner.

I would like to see him in Philly because that would mean that the Eagles aren't dead yet, and that this era is over, because I do like that team and I like a lot of parts of that team.

Yeah.

I don't know.

That'd be fun.

This is gonna be a fun.

Buffalo would be Buffalo would be interesting.

I mean, Buffalo to me.

Buffalo would like it would be.

and again, they've got to do some cap gymnastics to make that work, but Buffalo would be the man, like, they're serious.

They're serious about like really getting going after it now and you're opening a new stadium.

You gotta soften the blow, uh, with the, with the head coach and I mean, listen, I love, and then like I think your argument would be by bringing in Max Crosby, you're making Greg Russo and Ed Oliver and all the guys you already have better, right?

Like I think, you know, Dion Walker from, from Kentucky who they drafted last year had a really good rookie year that a lot, a lot of people didn't pay attention to.

Um, you can start seeing the makings of a pretty good defense if they can hit on some of the young guys that, that they've drafted the last few years.

Man, but you're right Cole Bishop, Cole Bishop is a really good young player.

Like, you know, Max Hairston, I think, has a chance at corner like they.

Like, getting a, getting a defensive player like that would kind of be like, I think maybe a move to bring it all together, you know.

You're right too, in saying that I think I would, if I was a team that had holes in both spots, I would prioritize Crosby over Brown.

I just would.

I, I think that would be, uh, he's, he's a couple, he, he's, they're about the same age, but I just think, I think Crosby is gonna hold up better.

I just do.