How do Ravens feel to touch? They look like very sleek creatures, very shiny. But are they slimy? Quoth the Baltimore Ravens: “hell yeah we are.”
The Birds committed a ruthless backstab this past week to the Las Vegas Raiders. One of the first big reports of the offseason was a major trade for disgruntled Raiders star Maxx Crosby. Crosby is one of the league’s premier defensive ends and pressure cookers and after being shut down against his will late in the season when the Raiders decided to tank with two pointless games left, he requested to get the hell out of there. The Ravens obliged, sending two first round picks to Vegas for Maxx. Big get! New coach Jesse Minter got a massive piece for his defensive reclamation project.
Then, all of a sudden, the Raiders post an ominous social post saying the Ravens backed out of the trade. It comes out that Crosby “failed his physical” and will not be a Raven. Crosby posts a picture of himself flying back to Vegas on a plane, the Ravens get their first round picks back, and we have to start wiping the floor to clean up all the saliva that slopped out when our jaws hit the ground. What the fuck happened? Was Crosby’s knee injury actually that bad?
Crosby’s benching late in the season, which he objected to, was about his knee injury. It felt like the Raiders were shutting him down to tank, Crosby himself seemed to believe that, protesting his shutdown and posting a video of him playing basketball to pretend his knee was fine. But he did have surgery on the knee, so maybe it actually was pretty bad, and the Ravens saw something they didn’t like. Hell, maybe they pulled a Dolphins Drew Brees. Or maybe, just maybe, they got cold feet and bullshitted an excuse to back out.
Less than 24 hours after the news dropped about the trade falling through, the Ravens have suddenly come to an agreement with former Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson. The contract is basically on par with what they would have been paying Crosby. So, did the Ravens just throw money at Hendrickson the instant Crosby failed his exam? Or did Hendrickson lower his asking price just enough that the Ravens saw that they could get a different star pass rusher for the same price, without giving up the two draft picks, and then purposefully failed Crosby while negotiating the deal with Hendrickson?
I believe the latter, and it would appear a lot of NFL GMs think the same thing. Will Compton, a former player, brought up that this isn’t even the Ravens first time pulling a stunt like this, screwing over Ryan Grant when Michael Crabtree suddenly became available. The Ravens had all the information they needed on Crosby’s knee. I don’t believe the Ravens side of any of this. I think they agreed to date two different guys at the same time so that they could pick which one they wanted. They played both sides, so they could come out on top. They “agreed” to take on Crosby, but kept a separate phone so they could text Hendrickson the whole time, then got confirmation they could actually land Hendrickson, keeping the picks, and then used the knee thing to plausibly back out of the Crosby good faith deal.
Is this illegal? No. The Ravens played this ruthlessly and perfectly. They have enough excuses that can cover their tracks unless some dope just outright says it all in an email somewhere. But backing out on a good-faith trade deal sure makes them look like scummy businessmen. The Raiders, who signed over 200 million dollars worth of massive free agency deals, expecting to not have Maxx Crosby on the books, now suddenly have Maxx Crosby on the books anyway. They might still trade him, but also probably won’t manage to get the same deal for him as other teams will likely use the failed physical as an excuse to lowball their offer. Slimy shit, birds. Slimy.
I’m gonna laugh my ass off if Hendrickson hurts his knee this season.
