Maxx Crosby is back in the trade conversation, and the timing matters because the Las Vegas Raiders are already in Year 1 of a rebuild. On May 16, Jake Beckman wrote that the Chicago Bears could pursue Crosby at the trade deadline or even sooner, keeping one of the league’s most disruptive edge rushers in the center of a market that never really cooled off.
Beckman said the Bears went into free agency needing a real and dominant defensive end and did not get one, and then entered the 2026 NFL Draft with the same need and still came away empty. In his view, that leaves Crosby as the obvious name to circle. “Going into free agency, the Bears needed a real and dominant defensive end, and they didn’t get one. Going into the draft, they still needed a real and dominant defensive end, and they still didn’t get one. Maxx Crosby is still out there,” he wrote.
The Raiders’ position makes the conversation more complicated. Crosby wants to remain with Las Vegas in the short term, even as the team works through a rebuild. A trade to the Baltimore Ravens previously fell through after Crosby did not pass a physical, and he has since had knee surgery. That sequence matters because it changed how teams viewed him, at least for a while.
Beckman said Crosby’s value dropped after the Ravens backed out, then climbed again. He argued that the price would rise sharply once Crosby gets on the field in Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season and starts looking like himself again. “Now, the big ‘reason’ the Ravens said they backed out of the trade was that Crosby didn’t pass his physical. They were probably lying about that, but he did just have knee surgery, so maybe they were telling the truth,” he wrote. “All that means is that Crosby’s value is going to skyrocket when he comes out on the field in Week 1 and gets back to his ol’ psycho-killer self,” he added.
That is why a move now could be cheaper than a move later, even if teams want proof that Crosby is fully healthy before they pay up. “I get that teams want to wait to see if that happens, and the Raiders are probably really chill about waiting and getting a better trade package… But the sooner a team trades for Crosby, the less they’re going to have to pay for him,” Beckman wrote.
Darren Waller, who has spent time around Crosby, said on the May 14 edition of Yahoo Sports Daily that the situation has likely been hard to process. He said Crosby got “a new start” that was then stopped when he went back to a team he was frustrated with, while still working back from surgery and injury. “Maybe it didn’t go the way he originally wanted, but now he gets a new start, so let’s do it,” Waller said. “Then, for that to be completely halted and for him to go back to a team he was frustrated with, a team that had him on the trading block, that whole cycle just feels like a lot to deal with and process while still recovering from surgery, dealing with an injury and trying to get back to 100 percent.”
Waller added, “It’s just a lot of things to feel and sit with that are probably uncomfortable,” and said, “That’s what I think about when I think about a guy I’ve spent a lot of time around and know on a deeper level.” For now, Crosby remains with the Raiders, but the combination of his injury recovery, his value in the market and the Bears’ lingering need keeps the story alive. If he opens the 2026 NFL season healthy and disruptive in Week 1, the trade noise around him could get a lot louder fast.
