The Chicago Bears were the latest team to weigh in on Maxx Crosby, saying they were interested before the Ravens deal.
The Maxx Crosby rumor and speculation mill has now become an NFL cottage industry, with the Chicago Bears being the latest team to have expressed interest in the Las Vegas Raiders’ defensive end. The Raiders, of course, traded Crosby to the Baltimore Ravens instead, only to have Crosby fail his physical due to a knee issue, and the controversy continues to grow.
Bears GM Ryan Poles was the latest to enter the Crosby fray, according to Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk via a report from Courtney Cronin of ESPN.
“We were involved. We checked into it,” Poles said. “We looked to see if it made sense. Had some dialogue. I’ll leave it at that.”
Poles is basically checking two job-related boxes here. One is to make sure that everyone in his organization and around the league knows that he did his due diligence by inquiring about Crosby, which is de rigueur.
The second box is more interesting. Poles is also running a new Crosby trade up the proverbial flagpole, as some have suggested that Crosby could be available with a reworked deal in which one of two offered first-rounders converts to a third if the defensive end isn’t healthy enough to play in a specified number of games.
Expect more teams to check in and do some obligatory tire-kicking. It’s part of the drill for GMs around the league for teams that need edge rushers, especially given the speculation that the Ravens experienced buyer’s remorse when they were given a longer window than usual to reconsider the trade before the opening of the league year on Wednesday.
The Raiders aren’t commenting on this, and it would be surprising if they did at this point. This trade likely would have been a done deal if it had been made closer to the opening of the league year, and Las Vegas is taking all kinds of heat for providing that longer window of opportunity.
Supposedly everyone’s now back on the same page in Las Vegas, with Crosby emphatically putting it out on social media that he’s back and wants to be a Raider, presumably for life again.
But the word “life” might have a short shelf life if the right deal comes along. Comments about Crosby have now become something of a third rail for the Raiders, but the reality is that a reworked version of this deal remains very much alive for at least the next week or two.