FINALLY.
It's been a long month for Raiders fans. After a dreadful season mercifully ended back in January, the team has been involved in the least-enjoyable rumors possible, day after day, for the last several weeks. Even the Pete Carroll hiring couldn't entirely erase the growing speculation that the Raiders were going to spend this offseason figuring out how to trade the face of their franchise.
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But now, in the middle of bleak midwinter, some good Maxx Crosby news has arrived. It comes courtesy of ESPN, who I've never said anything mean about in my entire life. They dropped a big roundup of offseason questions this week, and in it, NFL analyst Dan Graziano did some speculating on how the Crosby stuff is going to actually play out. I don't want to spoil too much, but it's ... actually optimistic? In a way that Raiders fans aren't going to understand? It's a delight.
Finally, some good news about Maxx Crosby's future with the Las Vegas Raiders
"Well, the Raiders are going to have to do something. Crosby and the Raiders agreed on a contract adjustment last offseason that moved money up from future years into 2024, but the result is his deal has two years left at an average of around $21.5 million annually -- and none of it is guaranteed. An extension that moves Crosby in line with the other top edge rushers in the NFL is probably the correct solution, and even with the Raiders under new management for the second offseason in a row, I'd expect them to treat Crosby like the franchise cornerstone that he is and get that extension done. He had 7.5 sacks and 43 pressures over 12 games in 2024."
An extension! On the long list of possibilities that Raiders fans were preparing for in the coming months, I feel like "an extension that works great for both sides" was so, so, so far down the list. Good things like this don't happen to the Raiders. The notion that he's not actually going to the Lions or Packers or whatever is just now crossing my mind, and suddenly, colors are a bit brighter. And now the sun's coming out? Weird. That's the power of arbitrary ESPN predictions, I guess.
I'll take it, though. The Pete Carroll Era is already off to a fantastic start. Think about all the other hypothetical good news that's coming next!