The Las Vegas Raiders want to keep star edge rusher Maxx Crosby but rumors suggest he wants out. What did the general manager say?
The Las Vegas Raiders signaled a full rebuild after another disappointing season in which the team went just 3-14.
The Raiders cleaned house within the coaching staff, firing former head coach Pete Carroll and hiring Klint Kubiak a month later as well as bringing in a bunch of new coaches and coordinators.
What comes with a full rebuild? Usually, it involves trading your best assets for draft picks to have a long but successful roster reconstruction. For the Raiders, their best tradeable asset that makes sense is All-Pro defensive end Maxx Crosby, who is rumored to want out of Las Vegas for a couple of reasons.
First and foremost, Crosby has expressed his desire to win. For a long time, and really up until the last couple of months, he wanted to do so with the Raiders. But when Las Vegas shut down the powerful edge rusher prior to the final two games of the season due to a nagging knee injury, Crosby got upset.
He takes pride in being on the field, and despite being injured, Crosby wanted to end the season playing with his teammates. The Raiders organization didn’t want him to risk further injury that could have resulted in long-term damage, so they placed the star on season-ending injury reserve.
Crosby decided to take to social media to show that he could have kept playing. He posted videos of him and his daughter playing basketball and jumping on a trampoline, which had to have caused some tension between the two parties. Then came the rumors that Crosby wanted out.
Crosby didn’t put any gasoline on the fire or request a trade, but a report came out that an anonymous general manager said Crosby told Tom Brady, a minority owner of the Raiders, that he will never play for the team again. This report wasn’t confirmed to be true or false, but given the direction of the franchise, it wouldn’t be surprising if he wanted out.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported that if the Raiders do move Crosby, the organization would want a return that resembles what the Dallas Cowboys got in return for Micah Parsons. The Raiders are reluctant to get rid of Crosby, though, and General Manager John Spytek addressed the rumors Tuesday at the scouting combine in Indianapolis.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Spytek told reporters that he expects Crosby to be a Raider this season.
Rapoport added that the GM called Crosby elite and that the team needs more players like him on the roster.
“We’re in the business of having really good players on the team, and we need a lot more of them.”
A rebuild doesn’t necessarily have to be a long process, but when the Raiders were in the hiring process for the head coach position, they made it abundantly clear that candidates must be prepared for that scenario. So, not moving Crosby, who will be 29-years-old in August and deserves to play for a contender, doesn’t make the most sense.
Las Vegas has several talented playmakers that are great building blocks, including Crosby, but they are all much younger. The organization should do right by their franchise player, and it could just be a leverage strategy, but it doesn’t appear that a trade is coming. At least, not anytime soon.