Rarely does something of the magnitude of the Baltimore Ravens pulling out of their agreed-upon trade with the Las Vegas Raiders for Maxx Crosby, a decision that has massive ramifications and consequences for the rest of the league, occur in the NFL.
But such historic and ultimately infamous things only happen to the Silver and Black.
Raider Nation is up in arms about the way things went down, and rightfully so. It seemed like Baltimore waited until Trey Hendrickson was in its grasp to back out of their deal with the Raiders. The Athletic's Dianna Russini provided an incriminating piece of evidence to prove the conspiracy theorists right.
"Baltimore stayed in touch with Hendrickson’s camp yesterday, and most in the Ravens’ building, including the front office, knew they were landing the former Bengal this morning," Russini reported.
The smoking gun.
Dianna Russini just confirmed Ravens' shady dealings with Raiders
Now, the timeline is all a bit murky still. But, if the Ravens were communicating with Hendrickson's camp on Tuesday before they bailed on their trade with Las Vegas for Crosby, as Russini reported, then it's not difficult to take that next step and label Baltimore's decision as shady, at best.
Crosby was in Baltimore on Tuesday morning, at the latest, according to his Instagram story, and typically, physicals are the first thing that a team does upon a player's arrival. That means the Ravens likely completed their physical with Crosby early on Tuesday.
Why, then, did they wait until Tuesday evening to back out of the trade? Perhaps these conversations took place over several hours, and the culmination of them was the Raiders' posting about the rescinded trade on social media. That could be the case.
If Baltimore was in conversations with Hendrickson's camp on Tuesday, however, it paints a different picture. My takeaway from this is that the Ravens performed Crosby's physical, and whatever was on there, whether they truly felt confident about his knee or not, they strung the Raiders along.
RELATED: Maxx Crosby's agent shades Ravens after failed physical ruins blockbuster trade
On Tuesday afternoon, reports began to surface that Hendrickson was going to make his decision on where he'd play next year. After most anticipated a contract north of $30 million per year for Hendrickson, his pricetag certainly dropped after nearly two days had gone by.
And the Ravens noticed.
They realized that Hendrickson could be signed for much less than anticipated, so Baltimore could get its edge rusher help at $28 million and not have to give up two first-round picks in the process. It stands to reason they worked this out with Hendrickson's camp before bailing on Las Vegas.
In fact, the Ravens aren't even trying to hide it. They signed Hendrickson to the same contract that they had set aside for Crosby: four years for $112 million. And they got it done quickly. That is almost too much of a coincidence to be believable. And folks around the league aren't buying Baltimore's story.
Unfortunately, the Raiders don't seemingly have much recourse here. The Ravens were within their right to back out of a deal for a "failed physical." But the right course of action would be to notify Las Vegas immediately, then back out, and then go pursue Hendrickson.
Do not do both at once and string Las Vegas along.
It's not a leap to say that Baltimore would have kept Crosby, had they not gotten their paws on Hendrickson. The only way they could know this is if they were working the phones with Hendrickson while deciding what to do with Crosby, as Russini reported.
That is an incredibly bad-faith deal, and Russini confirmed it.