The Las Vegas Raiders are trading five-time Pro Bowl defensive end Maxx Crosby to the Baltimore Ravens, ESPN’s Adam Schefter and multiple media outlets reported Friday.
The cost for the Ravens will be first-round draft picks in 2026 and 2027. The trade cannot be processed until next week.
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The Dallas Cowboys offered a first- and second-round pick for Crosby, but Baltimore’s offer was better, Schefter reported.
The Ravens will have Crosby under team control for four seasons, with a salary cap hit of $35.8 million for 2026.
It sure looks like Ravens star quarterback Lamar Jackson had advance notice of what was doing down.
Ravens make their biggest offseason splash … ever?
The Ravens have enjoyed decades of a stable and effective front office, at the cost of rarely making the kind of all-in moves that set off social media. As The Athletic’s Jeff Zrebiec notes, the Ravens had never traded a first-round pick for a veteran in franchise history.
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That changed Friday.
This was already a complicated offseason in Baltimore, which bid farewell to longtime head coach John Harbaugh and installed Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter in the role. The organization is trying to recover from a disappointing 2025 season and has some notable free agents in center Tyler Linderbaum and tight end Isaiah Likely.
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Re-signing those players and/or adding new ones was likely going to require a restructure of Jackson’s contract, as the team entered the offseason with only $18.6 million in cap space for 2026, via OverTheCap. We can now safely say the odds of Jackson following through on that are high, while the odds of retaining Linderbaum are lower.
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The reward for the Ravens is the kind of pass rusher the team hasn’t had during Jackson’s tenure. An All-Pro in his prime, ready to wreak havoc in Minter’s new system.
The addition improved Baltimore’s odds of winning the Super Bowl, according to Yahoo Sports betting analyst Ben Fawkes:
Raiders’ relationship with Maxx Crosby got strained quickly
Raiders general manager John Spytek told reporters at the NFL scouting combine that he anticipated Crosby being on the roster next season. He said so two weeks after new head coach Klint Kubiak made it clear that he wanted Crosby, 28, to be part of Vegas’ success going forward, calling that a “no-brainer.”
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But Crosby trade rumors have come in waves, the latest arriving after the Raiders shut him down for their final two games last season.
The Athletic’s Dianna Russini reported on Jan. 3 that the Raiders’ decision to place Crosby on injured reserve strained the relationship between him and the team. While Crosby’s knee injury ultimately required surgery, he apparently felt confident he could play through the issue.
After the Raiders put him on IR, he posted a video of him playing basketball and photos of him on a trampoline. Meanwhile, the Raiders tumbled toward the No. 1 pick in this year’s NFL Draft, a “race” that Crosby notably didn’t care for as a defensive stalwart starring for a franchise that has played in just two playoff games since making the Super Bowl during the 2002 season.
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With all sorts of noise surrounding Crosby, particularly during Super Bowl week, he told the “Let’s Go!” podcast on Feb. 9 that he had been tuning it out and focusing on returning to full strength.
“People are gonna have rumors,” Crosby said at the time. “I just looked at my phone, I’ve been working all morning. Everyone’s hitting me up, ‘Did you say this?’ I can’t control that. You learn that as a player. If I wasn’t doing the right things, and if I wasn’t the person and player I was, you know, people wouldn’t be talking about all of the nonsense. But that’s what comes with it.
“If you have drama, if you have a losing season, they just try to throw gasoline on the fire and make things a certain way. And, for me, I know what I’m about, I know what I represent. I really don’t care what everybody has to say.”
He later added: “I know my truth.”
Crosby has maintained that he wants to win and focus solely on football.
Last year, the Raiders signed Crosby to a three-year extension reportedly worth $106.5 million. Back then, that deal made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history.
He no longer holds that title, however, he still commands immense value at a premium position.
While still based in Oakland, the Raiders selected Crosby out of Eastern Michigan in the fourth round of the 2019 draft. He’s played for them the past seven seasons, piling up at least 10 sacks in four separate seasons.
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He’ll get a change of scenery in 2026 and perhaps a return to the postseason, too.