Back in his younger days, when the Raiders played in Oakland and Maxx Crosby was trying to prove he belonged in the NFL, the fourth-round draft pick from Eastern Michigan was a holy terror during practice.
Habitually, he would blow up coach Jon Gruden’s offensive script by charging off the edge and batting down passes, sometimes getting dangerously close to the quarterback. At one point, Gruden threatened to cut him if he kept it up.
As Crosby blossomed into one of the league’s best players, Gruden’s full-time successors in Las Vegas — Josh McDaniels, Antonio Pierce and Pete Carroll — found themselves powerless to contain him.
Crosby, several witnesses say, would frequently violate one of football’s most sacred practice rules by making contact with red-jersey-clad quarterbacks — and get away with it. Said one witness: “His attitude was, ‘If you don’t want me to do it, then block me.’ And nobody was in position to challenge that.”
That’s because Crosby, the team’s best and most driven player, was adhering to an elite standard of intensity and preparation while playing for a perpetually under-performing organization.
Now, as yet another Raiders coach (newly hired Klint Kubiak) attempts to create a winning culture, he’ll likely do so without the longtime locker-room alpha, who’s expected to be traded in the coming days or weeks.
Things fell apart between Crosby and the franchise last December, when general manager John Spytek informed the five-time Pro Bowl edge rusher that the team was shutting him down for the season’s final two games, an obvious tanking strategy that prompted Crosby to storm out of the team’s training facility.
It worked: The Raiders went 3-14 to secure the first overall pick in next month’s draft. However, the unilateral decree also alienated the franchise’s most invested player.
Since then, it has been obvious that Crosby wants a change of scenery — and that the Raiders’ best course of action is to try to accommodate him.
With Las Vegas staring at a significant rebuild, and set to draft quarterback Fernando Mendoza with that first overall pick, it would be foolish not to look to the future. Crosby, who’ll turn 29 next summer, deserves to play for a contender. The Raiders, who have few valuable assets, can flip Crosby for draft capital that could theoretically pay future dividends.
This is not hard. And yet, it’s the Raiders, so of course this situation has the potential to become far clunkier and more complicated than it needs to be.
The outside interest is there, as it should be. A year ago, about half a dozen teams approached Spytek at the NFL Scouting Combine about the possibility of trading for Crosby. This time, that number is slightly higher, which would seem to indicate that a deal is attainable by the official start of free agency next week.
The Raiders are asking for a package similar to the one the Dallas Cowboys received from the Green Bay Packers last August for star edge rusher Micah Parsons: two first-round picks and three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark. That appears to be ambitious, given that Parsons was 26 and heading into his fifth season at the time of the deal. Also, Crosby recently had surgery to repair the meniscus in his left knee.
That said, there’s little doubt that at least some of these suitors value Crosby enough to make it worth the Raiders’ while.
Crosby hasn’t made a stink publicly, partly because of his deep affection for the Raiders’ fan base, but it’s clear that he has exhausted all efforts in Vegas. He’s had a new boss every 12 seconds, with one winning season out of seven to show for it. Including Rich Bisaccia, who took over for Gruden on an interim basis for the final three months of the 2021 season, Crosby has played for five head coaches; Kubiak would be his sixth.
That’s enough to make anyone angry, and asking Mad Maxx to spend what’s left of his prime on a team struggling to compete seems supremely uncool. Yet the Raiders aren’t assuring him they’ll accept the best offer they receive or solicit his input as to where he’d prefer to play.
In theory, this saga could extend all the way to the draft — or even into the season.
Raiders GM John Spytek and Maxx Crosby could decide that a trade benefits both parties. (Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
If that happens, it will continue a pattern of dysfunction that has plagued the Silver and Black throughout Crosby’s tenure, and which no sane superstar would perpetually welcome.
Last season, Crosby navigated another regime change — owner Mark Davis essentially ceded power to minority partner Tom Brady, who tabbed Carroll as his head coach and Spytek as the GM. Some combination of that Power Trio decided to make Chip Kelly the league’s highest-paid offensive coordinator, giving him a reported $18 million over three years.
How did that go? Not swimmingly.
Among other oddities, Kelly employed a coaching style that felt relatively distant by NFL standards, delegating many of his gameplan tasks to assistants. During some games, for which he was stationed in the upstairs coaching box, Kelly refrained from addressing the Raiders’ offensive players in the locker room at halftime, allowing his assistants to convey any schematic adjustments.
Kelly was fired in November after the Raiders fell to 2-9, a little more than two weeks after Carroll had dismissed special teams coordinator Tom McMahon. Other than that, it was a pretty stable operation.
Like many players and coaches, Crosby was frustrated by the presence of Alex Guerrero, a staunch Brady ally whose official title is wellness coordinator.
Guerrero, who regularly attends practices and meetings, purports to possess significant organizational power, informing players of impending transactions and even indicating to staff members who don’t follow his instructions that their jobs may be at risk.
Guerrero is perceived to have a direct pipeline to Brady, who lives in Florida and serves as Fox’s lead NFL analyst, limiting his in-person presence. Suffice it to say that there are trust issues permeating the Raiders’ training facility in Henderson, Nev.
The hope is that the Raiders, beginning with the Mendoza pick, can create a stable environment and forge a brighter organizational future. After firing Carroll in January, Davis issued a statement that spelled out the power dynamic and the vision: “Moving forward, General Manager John Spytek will lead all football operations in close collaboration with Tom Brady, including the search for the club’s next head coach. Together, they will guide football decisions with a shared focus on leadership, culture, and alignment with the organization’s long-term vision and goals.”
If Spytek and Brady are indeed thinking long-term, they’ll sift through the offers for Crosby, find a suitable trade partner and thank him for his service.
If not? Well, it’s probably going to take more than a red jersey to protect Mendoza once training camp begins.
