When the Las Vegas Raiders announced that the Baltimore Ravens pulled out of a trade for Maxx Crosby, days after they agreed to the deal, it absolutely rocked the NFL world. While various moves have been called off in NFL history, mostly free agency signings, a trade of that magnitude has never fallen apart so publicly before.
While all parties involved are moving on, plenty of people are still making sense of what is definitely a historical moment. The collapsed trade will be a memorable moment in the history of the two iconic franchises and the Hall of Fame player.
It also joins a list of NFL-altering Raiders trades that almost happened. In the franchise’s storied history, it has had a couple of trades, involving high-profile players, that fell just short of the finish line.
Raiders have a minor history of high-profile trades that almost happened
One of those deals that came close to happening was during the 1990 offseason, when the Raiders, playing out of Los Angeles at the time, negotiated with the Miami Dolphins about a trade for quarterback Dan Marino. The future Hall of Fame QB was already a five-time Pro Bowler at that time, but he was coming off two of the worst seasons of his prime.
Marino led the league in passing for a fifth time in 1988, but he also threw 23 interceptions and the Dolphins went 6-10 — their first losing season with him at quarterback. Miami followed that up with an 8-8 season where Marino led the league with 22 interceptions, and the team missed the playoffs for a fourth straight year.
So after seven years in the league for Marino, and back-to-back years without a Pro Bowl appearance, after starting his career with five straight, Dolphins head coach Don Shula thought it may have been time to move on from the quarterback.
The legendary Al Davis was glad to hear that news, and reportedly came to an agreement with Shula on a package for Marino. So why didn’t the quarterback end up a Raider? Shula increased Miami’s asking price twice after he and Davis had already agreed on a deal, so, of course, Al Davis wasn’t going for that.
The deal fell through and Marino played another decade for the Dolphins.
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That wasn’t the only time the Raiders almost landed a Hall of Fame quarterback, after his career had already started. In 2007, when the team was in Oakland, the franchise had a disgruntled Randy Moss, who desperately wanted to get out of town. The Raiders were done trying to make him happy, so they started to look for trade partners.
The two teams that emerged with the heaviest interest in a Moss trade were the New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers. Packers quarterback Brett Favre put a lot of pressure on Green Bay to go get the Hall of Fame receiver, and the organization responded.
It became clear that the Packers were a likely destination for Moss, it was just a matter of what package Green Bay would send to Oakland to get the deal done. Reports emerged that the Packers were willing to send one of their recent first-round picks, who had been sitting on the bench as a backup, Aaron Rodgers.
Reporter Michael Felger even shared that the trade was on the verge of being announced. Of course, Moss was ultimately sent to the Patriots, and Green Bay denied ever including Rodgers as a trade piece — which is to be expected since he went on to become their franchise quarterback.
Now, in 2026, the Raiders are here again: involved in a history-altering trade that didn’t go through. The Crosby trade is much different, for a couple of reasons. One of those reasons is that it only consisted of the Raiders potentially trading a Hall of Fame talent away, not getting one back.
The main reason it’s different, though, is that it’s the only almost trade of the three that was reported in real time as a done deal.