DeCosta did not discuss his team’s evaluation of Crosby’s health on Wednesday, but he did shed light on his conversations with Crosby and the Raiders when it was determined that the trade would not go through.<\/p>\n
“It’s tough, it’s challenging,” DeCosta said. “It was devastating for me to have that conversation; I’m sure challenging for them to hear as well. It’s also very, very, very, very hard for the player to hear that, as well. And it’s probably hardest for [Crosby] more than anybody else.”<\/p>\n
Following Tuesday’s turnabout, the Ravens quickly pivoted and agreed to a four-year, $112 million deal<\/a> with former Bengals pass rusher Trey Hendrickson<\/a>. DeCosta told reporters that Hendrickson was not a Plan B, but that Hendrickson represented the second half of their defensive master plan that became possible after Tyler Linderbaum<\/a> agreed to a deal<\/a> with the Raiders.<\/p>\n “We were very focused on Maxx and [had] a lot of attention given to that particular acquisition,” DeCosta said. “As I said, [he’s] a player that I think really fits us and his skillset. We’ve played against him. I really admire him in many different ways. I think for us, it was going to be probably our biggest foundational acquisition this year. So, I didn’t really look at him as like, ‘Oh, we’ll do this because of that.’ It was really more, ‘How do we get better as a football team?’<\/p>\n “In terms of Trey, I think we came to a point probably after we lost Tyler where, as we’re trying to find the best way for us to get better as a football team, Trey kind of made a lot of sense as a possible guy to look at. So, we started some discussions with him and his agent, thinking that potentially we’d have two pass rushers on the defensive line on both sides of the line. Again, I think it was disappointing to us and probably in a way, potentially disappointing probably to Trey, as well.”<\/p>\n DeCosta’s mention of Linderbaum is important because it suggests the Ravens could have taken stock of their roster following an uncharacteristically significant exodus of players and wondered whether they’d taken the most prudent approach toward reshaping their team at the start of the 2026 league year. Linderbaum’s departure was especially significant given his status as the top center available in an unusually hot center market, Baltimore’s inability to entice him to stay and the resulting effects it had on how the Ravens would approach the rest of the busiest week of the NFL offseason.<\/p>\n “So we had started discussions with [Crosby and Hedrickson],” DeCosta said. “We had already agreed to potentially the trade with the Raiders. We were trying to sign Tyler, obviously. We weren’t able to get that done. Looking at the best ways for us to improve our football team, at some point, we just said, ‘You know what? This might be a guy that really fits us,’ and we played against [Hendrickson] twice a year for the last, whatever many years, four or five years. And thought, ‘Hey, maybe this is a way for us to get better as a football team.’ So that was definitely a possibility for us, not to say it would have happened, but definitely something that we had contemplated and discussed with Trey.”<\/p>\n Essentially, with cap space earmarked for Linderbaum now free to spend elsewhere, DeCosta could expand his range of possibilities concerning other available players, clearing room for Hendrickson — who raised eyebrows with his own patient approach to free agency — to enter the equation.<\/p>\n It’s fair to wonder whether the Ravens watched an unexpected number of players leave, then adjusted how they valued the picks they’d already verbally committed to Las Vegas in the proposed Crosby trade and reconsidered their aggressive agreement.<\/p>\n We’ll likely never know for certain whether this was the case, but DeCosta knows his team will remain the subject of scrutiny, skepticism — and perhaps worst of all, hesitancy — from outside parties for some time.<\/p>\n It’s a risk he was willing to take.<\/p>\n “I understand it. We live in that age of skepticism, and people question, especially people that don’t really know me, don’t know the Ravens culture, the Ravens organization,” DeCosta said. “So I understand it. As I said at the beginning, we got a responsibility \u2014 I’ve got a responsibility — to the Ravens, to this community, to our fans, and to Steve Bisciotti, to do what we think is best for the club. And that’s what we always try to do. Every decision we make is based on this idea: Is this the best thing for the Ravens? Very, very challenging.<\/p>\n “And I understand how people, maybe, from afar would feel that way, but nobody’s more upset about this than me. Gutted by it, actually. And so, a regret — a big regret for me. But we will move on as a, as a football team, and I think there’s many, many opportunities for us to grow as a team, to become a better team, to build a roster, and to be the team that we want to be.”<\/p>\n