{"id":844226,"date":"2026-03-31T03:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/844226\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:33:16","slug":"maxx-crosby-and-the-raiders-deserved-better-than-the-ravens-no-fault-spin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/844226\/","title":{"rendered":"Maxx Crosby and the Raiders deserved better than the Ravens\u2019 ‘No Fault’ spin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Las Vegas Raiders<\/a> and Maxx Crosby were undoubtedly burned by the Baltimore Ravens, but the latter\u2019s PR cleanup job is equally disgraceful.<\/p>\n

Sashi Brown stepped up to the microphone Monday at the league meetings and said all the right things. He just wasn\u2019t very convincing.<\/p>\n

The Ravens team president blamed the backlash over the Crosby trade fallout on \u201ca slow news cycle\u201d<\/a> and told reporters the team\u2019s reputation is fine because of its \u201cstrong and long relationships across the league.\u201d<\/p>\n

What he didn\u2019t do was answer the questions that actually matter. The Ravens\u2019 handling of this situation goes well beyond a slow week in the news, and a few polished talking points don\u2019t change that (H\/T ESPN<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with what happened\u2026<\/p>\n

Baltimore agreed to send two first-round picks, including the No. 14 overall selection, to Las Vegas for one of the best pass rushers in the NFL<\/a>. Four days later, the deal was dead. Less than 24 hours after that, the Ravens signed Trey Hendrickson<\/a> to a four-year, $112 million deal with no physical contingency and no draft picks attached. That\u2019s not a team frozen by uncertainty. That\u2019s a team that knew exactly what it wanted to do next.<\/p>\n

So the question worth asking is this: If Baltimore\u2019s medical staff had real concerns about Crosby\u2019s knee imaging, how hard did they actually look before committing two first-round picks in the first place?<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s \u201cno fault\u201d line is the most revealing thing he said all day. \u201cNo fault of Maxx, ours, or the Raiders.\u201d It sounds fair. It sounds balanced. What it actually does is let everyone off the hook while saying nothing. Teams have every right to use a physical contingency.<\/p>\n

But when a trade this big falls apart this publicly, and when it\u2019s serious enough that Brown is addressing it in front of the whole league, calling it a neutral outcome with no real responsibility attached isn\u2019t honesty. It\u2019s a spin.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Maxx Crosby himself\u2026<\/p>\n

Brown talked about treating the situation with \u201cprivacy and respect and dignity.\u201d At the same time, a source was out there describing Crosby\u2019s imaging as showing a \u201cdegenerative issue\u201d in his knee, which has real consequences for how the rest of the league sees him as a player. Those two things don\u2019t fit together neatly.<\/p>\n

Raiders general manager John Spytek handled it the right way<\/a>. \u201cMaxx is back like he never left,\u201d he said. Short, clean, and protective of his guy. That\u2019s the standard.<\/p>\n

Brown may be right that the process worked the way it was supposed to. Physical contingencies are normal. Trades fall apart. The AJ Epenesa situation with Cleveland<\/a> proves this isn\u2019t unique to Baltimore.<\/p>\n

But doing something by the book and doing something without consequence are two different things. The Ravens got out of the deal, avoided giving up two first-rounders, and landed a quality pass rusher for money alone. That\u2019s a good result for Baltimore.<\/p>\n

Calling the criticism a slow news cycle, though? That\u2019s a little too cute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Las Vegas Raiders and Maxx Crosby were undoubtedly burned by the Baltimore Ravens, but the latter\u2019s PR…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2052],"tags":[184,117,2282,7,6,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-844226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-ravens","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-ravens","10":"tag-baltimoreravens","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-ravens"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116321688385725863","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}