Look at it this way: Now Maxx Crosby doesn't have to write one of those treacly letters to Las Vegas Raiders fans thanking them for their love and devotion and swearing eternal fealty to them before heading off to work for another fan base that he will learn to love just as much. Now he can just saunter back into the house and act to the neighbors like he never intended to go anywhere at all, no matter what that moving van in front seemed to indicate.
In one of the great "How can I miss you when you won't go away" moments of the modern NFL, the Baltimore Ravens backed away from the blockbuster deal they made two days ago to acquire the Raiders' defensive game-wrecker, ostensibly because Crosby's post-surgical knee wasn't healed enough to pass the team's physical but maybe because the Ravens rethought the loss of the two first-round draft choices they had committed to sending Las Vegas in exchange. Because these are the Raiders, we are treated to a fresh round of "Well, of course it's the Raiders. Did you expect it to be normal?"
That isn't entirely fair in this case, to be honest, but the circular logic of failure based on past failures is also very much part of the Raider ethos. They have been intrepid, bold, and free-spending in the free agency period which technically starts later this afternoon. The last bit is a mockery of verb tenses that only makes sense in a world in which deadlines are mostly suggestions, but commitments are definitely commitments, and while the contracts aren't official yet the Raiders will now have to fit them into cap space that Crosby's return has tightened significantly.
Beyond the aforementioned speculation about cold feet, there have also been suggestions that the Ravens, unhappy that they lost their center Tyler Linderbaum in free agency to these very same Raiders (for three years, $81 million if you're keeping score at home), decided they didn't like the Crosby trade in that context and backed out of it for that reason. This would, again, be totally legal given that the move everyone saw and heard about hasn't officially happened yet. And let's be frank here—that would be a better story in the end, and a much more Raiders one. Finally taking up the work of fixing what has ailed them for a quarter century and then having it all come undone because of one of those moves is the sort of thing that could only happen to one NFL team, and it might be what's happening to that team here.
Whatever happens with Crosby from here, he won't be going to Baltimore. Fresh off not making the Crosby trade, the Ravens went out and pledged $112 million over four years for Cincinnati edge Trey Hendrickson, although that signing technically hasn't happened either. That's either opportunism after dodging a medical bullet with Crosby, or it's bad staff work to try for the Crosby deal at all when they could a close facsimile without spending any draft capital.
But even if Crosby's untouchability is indeed just a medical matter, and his knee is really just a filet-o-fish with some tattooed skin on the outside, it is just as Raider-y that those two incoming first-round draft choices—picks they were banking on as part of the massive rebuild that years of single-digit wins and double-digit losses required—are once again gone as though they never had them at all. And if you want to be technical about it, they didn't. Even though they did.
At any rate, now the Raiders have Maxx Crosby again, even though their relationship had been fractured at the end of last season's latest lost season. They could conceivably cobble together a new Crosby deal with another suitor, though it is unlikely that the same price tag can be applied, because of the smoke from that ostensibly failed physical but also because most teams will be reluctant to move multiple first-round choices for a great player with his kind of odometer issues. Crosby will be 29 with a knee history, which is a tough sell under normal circumstances, and the fact that the Ravens backed out of the deal for medical reasons almost certainly makes other teams wary of taking the same risk.
But the Raiders also have that $35 million cap charge and a $31 million cap commitment back on the books now that Crosby has returned to the place he officially never left, which means that an offseason spending spree predicated upon him no longer being on the payroll must slow somewhat. Even with as much cap room as the Raiders had, finding out that they have $35 million less of it than they thought they did will put a serious crimp in the shopping money.
As always, how much of this can be tied directly to the work of shadow owner Tom Brady is entirely up to your own impish sense of humor. But it does have that quintessential Raider feel to it—a team belatedly trying to get up only to find that the custodians had waxed the floor while they were still lying on it. That the time/space continuum burped all over the Raiders is just more of what they've been trying to overcome since 2002—the certainty that nothing good can happen to them because they've never been any good at making good things happen. And the best thing about it is that the Crosby deal that wasn't can't be used as evidence either way because it never happened, even though it clearly did; good intentions don't mean anything when, officially, they were only ever intentions. In the meantime, we can eagerly await Crosby's letter thanking the fans for believing in and supporting him through his hours in the transactional netherworld before making his return to football purgatory, where he currently still is. Got that? We knew you would.
