{"id":528181,"date":"2026-03-09T05:24:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T05:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/528181\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T05:24:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T05:24:06","slug":"bengals-were-latecomer-to-maxx-crosby-trade-sweepstakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/528181\/","title":{"rendered":"Bengals were &#8216;latecomer&#8217; to Maxx Crosby trade sweepstakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>March 8, 2026, 11:22 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The <a href=\"\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> showing interest in a trade for Maxx Crosby wasn\u2019t just a fan dream after all.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">As it turns out, the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/cincinnati-bengals\/327\" data-autotag=\"6d3e484d-5133-4c06-a871-967f8646390b\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Bengals<\/a> at least sniffed around the idea before backing out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">According to Sports Illustrated\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/albert-breer-free-agency-takeaways-why-linemen-could-receive-wow-contracts\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Albert Breer<\/a>, the Bengals were a \u201clatecomer\u201d to the conversations:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\u201cThe Bengals, on the verge of losing Trey Hendrickson in free agency, were another latecomer to the party. By then, over a quarter of the league\u2019s 32 teams had shown some level of interest in Crosby, with a few others that he had less interest in going to throwing their hats in the ring as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">This could\u2019ve been as simple as the Bengals asking about the price before backing out, a simple matter of due diligence.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Crosby, one of the NFL\u2019s best pass-rushers and still under 30 years old, instead got shipped to the Baltimore Ravens in exchange for two first-round picks.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The Bengals will lose Trey Hendrickson and perhaps Joseph Ossai in free agency. But they already have first-round investments in Shemar Stewart and Myles Murphy on the edge.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Even if they didn\u2019t, it\u2019s hard to imagine the Bengals strongly considered giving up two first-round picks and paying a massive contract to Crosby. One of the stated reasons for not paying a $30.2 million franchise tag to Hendrickson (although there are many) was the need to spread that money across the entire defense.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Small due diligence or not, it has to be encouraging for Bengals fans that the team sniffed around the idea at all, and a likely hint that the rumblings about serious aggression this offseason are pretty serious.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 8, 2026, 11:22 p.m. ET The Cincinnati Bengals showing interest in a trade for Maxx Crosby wasn\u2019t&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[202558,64,63,593,85,262535,262536,203469,210947,262537,203146,203142,203149,202991,262538,203139,258515,202561],"class_list":["post-528181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-accessfree","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports","tag-sstssportsnflbengals","tag-sstsnbengals","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagcincinnati-bengals","tag-tagmaxx-crosby","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-negative","tag-tagsports-illustrated","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtrey-hendrickson","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}