What the Hell Happened With Maxx Crosby and the Ravens? An FAQ.

Crosby was heading to Baltimore until the Ravens backed out of the trade. How did this mess happen?

Because the Ravens and Raiders came to their agreement before the start of the new league year, the trade was never made official. So technically, nothing happened! That weekend when we all thought Crosby was a Raven is just an apparition in our minds, based on the NFL’s official transaction log. Crosby’s 13-minute goodbye to Raider Nation was a big waste of time. All of those jersey swap graphics will disappear as quickly as those boxes of unworn “2025 AFC North Champions” shirts got shipped overseas. Baltimore had until Wednesday afternoon to say “psych” on the deal, and it exercised that right about 18 hours before the deadline. 

OK, so why the hell did this happen? 

“The Ravens have backed out of our trade agreement for Maxx Crosby” is the only official word we’ve gotten from either team on this ordeal so far. That’s how the Raiders broke the news on their social channels Tuesday evening. Baltimore has yet to offer up its explanation for backing out of the deal, but it’s been reported that Crosby failed his physical. Via The Athletic:

The Ravens’ doctors—along with multiple independent ones—reviewed Crosby’s MRI. They were unified in the belief that Crosby’s short-term outlook was positive, but there were concerns about the long-term prognosis of Crosby’s knee, per league sources.

It’s not surprising that Crosby couldn’t pass a physical right now. He’s still recovering from January knee surgery to repair a meniscus injury, which every team, including Baltimore, knew about during trade talks. Crosby’s knee is in rough shape shouldn’t have been news to the Ravens five days after they agreed to the deal. According to Crosby’s agent and doctor, who have both issued statements, his recovery is on track, and he should return to the field during offseason activities. The agent isn’t the most reliable source, for obvious reasons, but we haven’t gotten any reporting that disputes his claim. 

So naturally, people around the league think that the Ravens, led by general manager Eric DeCosta, were feeling buyer’s remorse about giving up two first-round picks for a 28-year-old coming off two down (by his standards) seasons and knee surgery. 

It’s been made clear by multiple people around the NFL at all levels that Baltimore had all the information and understood where Maxx Crosby’s knee was in terms of his recovery timeline.

Many in the league believe GM Eric DeCosta and the Ravens ultimately just got cold feet.

— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) March 11, 2026

Is that theory plausible? 

Yes, it is. This isn’t Baltimore’s first time backing out of a deal. The Ravens treat the days leading up to the new league year like a game of Survivor. In 2018, when DeCosta was serving as assistant general manager (but had already been named the GM-in-waiting because Ozzie Newsome was retiring later that year), Baltimore agreed to a long-term contract with free agent wide receiver Ryan Grant. Baltimore voided the deal the next day, after Grant failed a physical. He signed with the Colts and passed their physical less than a week later. In 2020, the Ravens agreed to a three-year, $30 million deal with defensive tackle Michael Brockers early in free agency, only to back out of it after a failed physical. Brockers went back to his old team, the Rams, for more money than he’d signed for in Baltimore, and he passed a physical just over a week later. And all the way back in 1997, the Ravens backed out of a trade with the Cowboys for safety Brock Marion after finding issues with his shoulder during his physical. He went on to the Dolphins, where he made three Pro Bowls in seven seasons. While it may seem unfair to hold something that happened nearly 30 years ago against the current team, a young DeCosta was working in the front office as a (seemingly impressionable) player personnel assistant. If a sportsbook were listing odds on the team most likely to back out of an agreement, the Ravens would be clear favorites. 

And the speed with which Baltimore was able to pivot to Hendrickson, who’s signing a four-year, $112 million contract with the Ravens also lends some credibility to the cold feet theory. That deal was reported within 12 hours of the Crosby trade’s cancellation. Things move fast in the NFL, but they don’t usually move that fast! Hendrickson shouldn’t have been an option for Baltimore before Tuesday night, but that was already pegged as his destination before we even had time to process the Crosby news. 

Let me put on my tinfoil hat for this: Either Baltimore and Hendrickson’s camp were keeping lines of communication open in the days after the Crosby trade was agreed on, or the two sides were talking before the legal tampering window opened, which would be ILLEGAL! Surely teams and agents are honoring the sanctity of ethical tampering! Surely the Ravens didn’t realize that Hendrickson would be available for $28 million a year—and, crucially, that they wouldn’t have to give up any first-round draft picks to get him—until after they’d agreed to the deal with Las Vegas. They simply weighed the two options and decided that Hendrickson was the better value. 

Wait, Bam Adebayo scored 83 points?

Stay focused. 

Is that true?

Yeah, the Wizards are a pathetic organization, and the Heat started intentionally fouling late to give him more time to pad his stats. The whole situation is a stain on the NB—

No, I mean is it true that Hendrickson is a better value? 

Oh, right. Well, that depends on the status of Crosby’s knee. A healthy Crosby is an elite, game-changing defender—and not just as a pass rusher. He destroys edges in the run game and can wreck a team’s game plan with his work on early downs alone. Hendrickson is more of a designated pass rusher; he has just as big an impact as Crosby in obvious passing situations but can be a liability in run defense. Based on pass rush numbers alone, the two have been equals over the past three seasons. While Crosby has posted more pressures, Hendrickson has the advantage in sacks and pressure rate. 

Hendrickson vs. Crosby, Since 2023 (TruMedia)PlayerGamesRush SnapsPressuresSacksPressure %Trey Hendrickson4110991853916.8%Maxx Crosby4415432013213.0%

Those numbers ignore run defense, of course, and there’s a wide gap between the two in that category. But the Ravens weren’t in desperate need of run defense on the edge. Crosby’s penetrating style on early downs doesn’t necessarily fit in Jesse Minter’s scheme, which asks defensive linemen to read blocks before attacking. Baltimore needed a third-down closer on the edge, and while Crosby also provides that, Hendrickson has been more reliable in recent seasons and has a future that’s easier to project. 

The caveat here is that we haven’t seen a healthy Crosby in two years. You’d like to hope that injuries have played a role in his declining production over the past two seasons. Otherwise, it’s looking like Crosby’s best days are behind him. Hendrickson is also coming off an injury, and he turned 31 last December. But a core muscle injury isn’t nearly as scary as a knee injury, and Hendrickson has a lot less mileage on him compared with the 28-year-old Crosby, who’s played 6,112 defensive snaps in his career, per TruMedia. Hendrickson has played 4,376. Crosby may be a couple of years younger, but in NFL years, he’s caught up to Hendrickson. Crosby’s best trait—that he never comes off the field—may be the reason the Ravens felt the need to back out of the deal. Signing Hendrickson as a free agent carries far less risk than trading for Crosby.

Even if this move works out on the field for Baltimore, the Ravens front office damaged its reputation, right? 

Sure, in theory. That’s certainly the front that anonymous execs and agents seem to be putting up in the aftermath of the news. Judging by their sternly worded graphic, the Raiders are surely pissed off with Baltimore. But people forget quickly in the NFL. The Raiders watched Josh McDaniels back out of a head coaching job with the Colts and hired him in the same role a few years later. New England’s various cheating scandals may have kept Bill Belichick out of the Hall of Fame, but it didn’t stop teams from trading with the Patriots during his tenure. Dallas and Washington were both punished by the league for not participating in the league’s collusion to keep spending down during the uncapped season in 2010, and all the teams that were pissed off about it kept making deals with them. 

The Ravens’ reputation as a competent organization will certainly take a hit after this. But this team has seen numerous scandals that were more reprehensible than a trade agreement that fell through, and it is still largely considered one of the model franchises in the league. Teams will still make deals with DeCosta and the Ravens if they covet a player on Baltimore’s roster. They won’t turn down an enticing draft-day trade because DeCosta was sketched out by Crosby’s medicals. 

Will Crosby be traded to another team? 

The Ravens deal didn’t just come out of the blue. Crosby asked for a trade in January, and the Raiders agreed that it was the best path forward for both sides. And after Las Vegas handed out over $280 million in contracts over the first few days of free agency, with $59 million of that going to defensive ends Kwity Paye and Malcolm Koonce, it appears that the Raiders have already moved on. 

Per Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, the team has told the free agent additions that those deals will be honored and that Las Vegas has the money to keep Crosby along with the new signings, which include former Ravens center Tyler Linderbaum. With Crosby on the roster in 2026, the Raiders still have more than $37 million in available cap space, per Over the Cap. But keeping him on the books could create problems down the line, so financially, it would still behoove the team to find a trade partner. 

That could be easier said than done now that teams in the pass rusher market have already made their moves. The Panthers are giving Jaelan Phillips a $120 million contract, the Commanders will sign Odafe Oweh for $100 million, and the Cowboys are trading for Rashan Gary. Just about all of the teams that were willing to make a sizable investment in an edge defender may have already made their moves, leaving the Raiders with a much smaller pool of potential trade partners than they had a week ago. And since there’s a strong class of edge rushers in the 2026 draft, it will be difficult to find another suitor willing to give up multiple first-round picks for Crosby over the next two months. 

Of course, every team needs pass rushers, and not all of them will land one in the draft. If playoff contenders like the Bills, Bears, and Eagles still have holes in their edge rusher depth charts as we get deeper into the offseason, the price to acquire Crosby could once again rise. Crosby’s presence on the Las Vegas roster was already awkward before the trade, and now his $31 million salary looks like a cap anchor. But it may be in the team’s best interests to wait until the summer to move their disgruntled star. 

So who won this non-trade?

There are no winners here. The Raiders come out as the sympathetic figures, but after their last season, they don’t look any more competent under the leadership of Tom Brady and general manager John Spytek than they did when Mark Davis was flying by the seat of his impossibly white pants. On the other side, the Ravens are coming out of a deal with the Raiders and looking like the team that needs to get its shit together. Crosby is still stuck with the Raiders, with no clear exit plan. Hendrickson finally got paid, but his performance in Baltimore will now come with Crosby-level expectations, which Crosby himself would’ve had problems meeting. 

Steven Ruiz has been an NFL analyst and QB ranker at The Ringer since 2021. He’s a D.C. native who roots for all the local teams except for the Commanders. As a child, he knew enough ball to not pick the team owned by Dan Snyder—but not enough to avoid choosing the Panthers.