Despite All the Trade Drama, Rich Eisen Backs Maxx Crosby to Have More Sacks in 2026 Than Trey Hendrickson

For all of the pandemonium and headlines that came out of this year’s legal tampering period, all of them seemed to pale in comparison to the disaster that proved to be the Baltimore Ravens’ attempted trade for the Las Vegas Raiders’ star pass rusher, Maxx Crosby. In the span of less than 24 hours, Crosby went from being welcomed by the city of Baltimore to being failed by the team’s doctors.

He was promptly sent back to Vegas on the first available flight, where, upon his landing, he deemed himself to be a “Raider for life.” Suffice to say, it’s been a strange week for the five-time Pro Bowler, but according to Rich Eisen, none of this should detract from the talent that Crosby possesses, nor the potential run that he is about to go on in 2026.

“He stays put, he’s got a chip. He goes somewhere else, he’s got a chip,” Eisen remarked after picking the Raider to record more sacks than Trey Hendrickson next season. “All of it is based on the Ravens made a mistake. All of it. ‘I had to go through all of that? I do my job, I’m one of those lion-hearted guys that says ‘You’re going to bench me even though the season is lost?’ …You don’t get cold feet on the condor. Who the hell are you?'”

In other words, the entire ordeal will likely serve as fuel to Crosby’s competitive fire. Despite the fact that he led the league in tackles for loss in both 2022 and 2023, and has also managed to make the Pro Bowl nothing more than a formality for himself, he now finds himself in a situation where it can be implied that neither the Ravens nor the Raiders truly want him.

According to Eisen, that’s a dangerous piece of bulletin board material to give to any player, let alone one that’s as talented as Crosby. “They are both professionals who want to win and want to sack quarterbacks and prove that they’re not too long in the tooth,” the veteran broadcaster noted in reference to both Hendrickson and Crosby. “But I’ll just take Maxx.”

For better or worse, Crosby’s chances of going to Baltimore are officially nonexistent, and the Raiders are now reportedly telling other teams that they are no longer listening to trade offers for him. In that sense, it seems as if they have finally recognized what they have in Crosby, but no matter how much, or how little, they choose to acknowledge this entire ordeal, they’ll never truly be able to make up for the fact that they actually did try to ship him out of the building at one point in time. And it’s that lack of loyalty that has likely hurt the most for Crosby.