The Las Vegas Raiders and Baltimore Ravens are still disputing the Maxx Crosby trade in all the wrong ways.
The back and forth about the rescinded trade for Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby has been going on for weeks now, but Baltimore Ravens team president Sashi Brown added more fuel to the fire when he claimed many of the comments about the trade were due to a “slow news cycle” in a piece written by Jamison Hensley of ESPN.
His comments were directed at some of the negative feedback the Ravens have received, as a variety of reports have surfaced detailing that rescinding the trade because of Crosby’s failed physical isn’t exactly atypical for Baltimore.
The bit about the news cycle flunks Media Relations 101 in a pretty spectacular fashion, and Sashi seemed to understand that in his comments that followed.
Brown added, "When you have high-profile transactions like this and opportunities like this, it's unfortunate, but sometimes these things do happen -- no fault of Maxx, ours or the Raiders. It's just kind of how it played out."
The Ravens bounced on the trade when they saw images that showed “a degenerative issue in his knee.” The Raiders think that’s not the case, and the two teams have been taking pot shots at each other ever since, with Crosby occasionally chipping in with his two cents worth.
Brown also mentioned the time window that allowed this to happen, as it gave the Ravens extra time to rescind the trade. He thinks that timeline should be reworked as a result, although what that has to do with a “slow news cycle” is a little hard to understand.
"I think this is how it should be handled," Brown said when he was asked if the window should be reworked. "I really do. We're not aiming for that result, but when you have a high stakes transaction like that, everybody needs to understand kind of what conditions you're moving forward on."
In addition, Brown pointed to another trade that was also rescinded for analogous reasons. The Cleveland Browns decided not to sign defensive end AJ Epenesa because of issues with his physical, and the one thing that is above board in what the Ravens did is that they broke no rule in doing it.
"This is not the first time it's going to happen. It will not be the last," Brown said. "So I think everybody wants to be prudent throughout processes and it's unfortunate and rare, especially in a high-profile case like this, but that's why the processes are in place."
Finally, Brown said the criticism from the Crosby fallout has been “misconstrued and mischaracterized,” and he added that the Ravens wouldn’t go public about that, even though they’ve done just that several times now.
"We wouldn't get into that publicly, honestly," Brown said. "And we understand the need to report on these high-profile cases. We're going to trust ourselves and have a ton of respect for Maxx and treat all this with the right privacy and respect and dignity that it deserves."