Per his request, as has now been revealed, Maxx Crosby was no longer going to be a Las Vegas Raider after a trade was agreed to with the Baltimore Ravens. He even did a lengthy, emotional farewell to the organization and to Raider Nation after the news of the trade.
Then, as we know, on the day before the trade could become official, the Ravens bailed, citing concerns about Crosby's surgically repaired knee early in what was already prescribed to be a months-long recovery process.
Something seemed, and still seems, fishy about the whole thing, and Ravens' general manager Eric DeCosta did nothing to squash that notion with his subsequent comments. The Raiders never truly wanted to trade Crosby, but even with the resources to improve this offseason, he wanted out.
The trade with the Ravens falling through has simply left Crosby to embrace a return to the Silver and Black, and the Raiders are back at square one when it comes to even a vague notion of ever trading him. But his previous request to be traded doesn't just disappear into the cloud of unrealized history.
We now have the wildest conspiracy theory for why the Maxx Crosby trade failed
The reasons the Ravens bailed on trading for Crosby don't hold water, since his injury, surgery and recovery progress were well-documented. When they quickly pivoted to sign Trey Hendrickson, who had his own significant injury last season, the Ravens looked even worse.
DeCosta also suggested that Baltimore planned to team up the two star edge rushers, which is patently ridiculous.
In the wake of him offering details about his visit to the Ravens' facility for his physical and what he thought would be something of a meet-and-greet with head coach Jesse Minter, DeCosta, and more, Mike Florio and Chris Simms discussed what Crosby said on Wednesday's edition of PFT Live.
Florio, as he does sometimes, took things up a notch with a wild conspiracy theory someone suggested to him.
“There are some people who think that maybe the Raiders engineered this, and maybe the Raiders knew this was going to happen, and maybe the Raiders knew this is the only way to get Maxx Crosby to want to be part of the team,” Florio said. "If so, well done, Tom Brady. Well done. It wasn’t my idea. Somebody mentioned it, and I started thinking about it.”
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While this fiasco with Crosby has surely dented their credibility around the league in a whole new way, it should be noted that the Ravens have a known history of failing player physicals to void transactions.
Despite all the information about Crosby's recovery progress from meniscus surgery being given to teams who were interested in trading for him, the Raiders would have known about that better than anyone. Two months post-surgery, a failed physical to void the trade was in the range of outcomes if the acquiring team was willing to go there, and especially to give up two first-round picks.
That said, the Raiders' brief statement after the Ravens bailed on the trade clearly conveyed disgust about how the situation had turned. So, even if they weren't gun-ho to trade Crosby, they committed to the agreement, and they expected the Ravens would stay committed after casting their lot.
Is it completely out of the question that the Raiders knew what they were inviting by agreeing to trade Crosby to the Ravens? No. But that it was part of a plan to make him want to stay is more than a few steps beyond acceptable logic.