Baltimore Ravens

Just when he thought he was out, they pulled him back in.

He still could end up out again.

In his deep dive regarding the failed Maxx Crosby trade from the Raiders to the Ravens, Ryan McFadden of ESPN reports that the Raiders continue to get calls about Crosby.

“Teams continue to check in on his availability,” McFadden writes, “but as of now, the Raiders’ asking price to trade Crosby’s contract remains high.”

Baltimore’s decision to pass on the trade given Crosby’s knee has made other teams “hesitant” to meet the Raiders’ demands. Based on McFadden’s reporting, however, the door hasn’t been slammed shut.

One factor will be whether and to what extent Crosby’s knee improves to the point that it will make a team comfortable to do the deal. It also would be prudent for both sides to keep things quiet until the new team has a chance to get a fresh look at Crosby’s surgically-repaired knee.

Crosby has said he wants to stay with the Raiders. The question is whether the Raiders prefer to move his contract for draft picks, and whether someone will offer enough to get them to do it.

Last year, Joe Flacco arrived in Cincinnati by trade. This year, it’s by choice.

Via agent Joe Linta, Flacco has agreed to terms on a one-year deal with the Bengals.

Flacco, 41, appeared in nine games for the Bengals in 2025, with six starts. He had opened the season as the Browns’ starter. Cleveland traded him to Cincinnati after Flacco was benched for rookie Dillon Gabriel.

Flacco joins Joe Burrow, Josh Johnson, and Sean Clifford on the depth chart in Cincinnati.

A first-round pick of the Ravens in 2008, Flacco won the Super Bowl XLVII MVP award to cap the 2012 season. He was twice the NFL’s highest-paid player.

He was cut by the Ravens after the 2018 season. Since then, he has played for the Broncos, Jets, Browns (twice), the Colts, and the Bengals. In 2023, a late-season stint in Cleveland resulted in Flacco winning the comeback player of the year award.

The new deep dive regarding the Maxx Crosby trade to the Ravens that wasn’t includes more information about the Cowboys’ interest in trading for Crosby, before the Raiders struck an ultimately failed deal with Baltimore.

Via Ryan McFadden of ESPN, the Cowboys made three different offers to the Raiders.

First, they offered the 20th overall pick in the first round of the 2026 draft and defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa. Second, they offered the 12th overall pick in round one and a third-round pick, but not Odighizuwa.

The third and final offer was the 12th overall pick and a second-round pick, but not Odighizuwa.

The Raiders, as PFT reported during Scouting Combine week, wanted two first-round picks and a player. They eventually got two first-round picks from the Ravens, until the Ravens decided not to proceed.

Earlier this month, Cowboys owner and G.M. Jerry Jones didn’t rule out making another run at Crosby. (So much for not talking about players under contract with other teams.) The magnitude and number of the offers shows that the Cowboys were very interested.

Given that they’ve yet to make good on Jerry’s vow to “bust the budget” with defensive talent, Crosby could still be the ace in Jerry’s glory hole.

It’s been only two weeks since the backpedal heard ‘round the football world. A new article from Ryan McFadden of ESPN takes a detailed look at the failed Maxx Crosby trade from the Raiders to the Ravens.

Here’s the key quote from McFadden’s reporting on Baltimore’s decision to not proceed: “The consensus was that Crosby would be able to play in 2026. The Ravens’ concern centered on the uncertainty of Crosby’s durability after a couple of seasons in Baltimore because of a degenerative issue in his knee, a source told ESPN.”

Crosby had surgery to repair a torn meniscus in January. He was, and still is, recovering from the procedure.

The reasoning makes sense. The Ravens were going to send a pair of first-round picks to the Raiders. The Ravens had never (and still haven’t) traded a first-round pick for a player. They presumably wanted Crosby to be something more than a short-term answer — especially if they were also going to be giving Crosby a sweetener over the four years and $116 million remaining on his current deal (which works out to a well-below-market average of $29 million per year).

In the end, the Ravens had to make a projection about the condition of the knee for 2026 and beyond. And they did.

Did the availability of Trey Hendrickson beyond the first wave of free agency play a role in the ultimate assessment? If he hadn’t overpriced himself, he would have been long gone by the time the Ravens conducted Crosby’s physical. By Tuesday, Hendrickson was available at $28 million per year, and with no draft-pick compensation.

It all comes back to the timeline that both teams implemented. The terms were agreed to on Friday, March 6. Both teams should have wanted to get the physical done before the market opened on Monday, March 9. The Raiders should have insisted on it.

The delay opened the door to the Ravens having the ability to assess Crosby’s knee, to consider the total investment, and to compare the transaction to other available alternatives.

Remember, no NFL trade is ever done until the two teams communicate the deal separately to the league office, with matching terms. For trades negotiated before the start of the new league year, either team can back out at any time and for any reason.

The Raiders, if they truly wanted to keep Crosby, should be happy that it happened. Crosby has rediscovered his passion for the team. He’ll have extra motivation to prove the Ravens wrong for doubting his abilities.

He wanted out; he now wants in. The Ravens arguably did the Raiders a favor.

Regardless, the Ravens decided based on the medical information that they weren’t comfortable proceeding. The Raiders did that in 2023 with quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, after getting a look at his injured foot. (The deal was renegotiated to protect the team against Garoppolo not eventually passing a physical.) The Raiders did it in 2014, after they got a look at offensive lineman Rodger Saffold’s shoulder.

Time will tell whether the Ravens got it right. For 2026 and beyond, Crosby will be determined to prove, in every snap from every game, that the Ravens got it wrong.

After Saturday’s inaugural Fanatics Flag Football Classic, Tom Brady met with reporters. And while most of the questions focused on flag football, he got one about the tackle football team he partially owns.

Unfortunately, it was a two-pronged inquiry that allowed him to non-answer one half, and to completely ignore the other.

Here’s the question Brady was asked about the Raiders: “Question about your NFL job. . . . [G.M. John] Spytek has talked about you being more involved in football this year. How will your role be different? And did you have any reaction to the Maxx Crosby trade that didn’t happen?”

Brady answered only the front end.

“You know, I love being involved in the NFL,” Brady said. “Like I said, I love football. I love sports. You know, I was very fortunate in my career to be around amazing people and mentors like Robert Kraft, as an owner of a team, and now getting to work with Mark Davis in the role that I’m at, and to see kind of a different team shape, the way that things are done and how we’re evolving and growing, and, you know, we certainly have a long ways to go. And, you know, it’s — what I learned about football in 23 seasons is, it’s a tremendous amount of resilience, adversity, discipline, determination, communication, of an entire organization to see, really the value in committing to one another. So, you know, it’s always, I think, process over outcomes, and I think we’re all trying — and all of us in our own role that we have, and the role that we have, and whether it’s an ownership role or a personnel department or strength and conditioning and athletic training and obviously players and positions and offense, defense — everyone’s got to come together. Everyone has to work incredibly hard for the people next to them.”

After Brady finished, the reporter apparently tried to ask a followup regarding the failed Crosby trade. But someone else started in with another question, and the subject changed.

As to the part Brady answered, he said didn’t specifically address his current role with the Raiders. It was just word salad; big-picture observations and platitudes and filibustering and nothing meaningful about what he is actively doing to help the Raiders deal with the reality that, as he conceded, “we certainly have a long ways to go.”

Yes, the Raiders have a long way to go. And the Eastbound-and-Down Brady has a short time to get there before he’ll be labeled as a failure in his effort to turn a pro football team into a contender.

Veteran receiver DeAndre Hopkins is looking for a new NFL team. He’s hoping to tap into an old connection.

Hopkins recently told TMZ that he’d like to reunite with quarterback Kyler Murray in Minnesota.

“Kyler . . . that’s my bro, man,” Hopkins said. “Kyler is like family. Whatever I can do for someone like that -- if Kyler needed me, if the Vikings need me, they know I’ll be there.”

The remark reconfirms the perception that Murray is the new starter in Minnesota (or, at a minimum, that it’s Murray’s job to lose).

The more pressing question for Hopkins is whether the Vikings envision a spot for him in the lineup. The depth chart is led by Justin Jefferson, obviously. Jordan Addison is the No. 2, as he approaches the last year of his first-round rookie deal. (The question of whether they’ll exercise his fifth-year option may not be the no-brainer it once seemed to be.) Jalen Nailor, mainly a slot receiver, left in free agency.

Hopkins has a specific and unique skill set. He displayed it during Saturday’s flag football event, boxing out an overmatched Team USA defender to make a one-handed catch of the undersized ball.

Hopkins turns 34 in June. He overlapped with Murray in Arizona from 2020 through 2022. He caught the Hail Murray touchdown pass amid a sea of Buffalo defenders, capping arguably the highlight of Murray’s career to date.

The challenge becomes setting aside Hopkins’s past achievements and assessing his expected contributions as of 2026. He had limited opportunities with the Ravens in 2025, catching 41 passes on 59 targets for 437 yards and four touchdowns.

Still, Hopkins could be a potent weapon in the red zone, giving Murray an option for jump balls in the back corner if/when the defense focuses on Jefferson.

New Ravens head coach Jesse Minter is taking over a team with very high expectations.

The betting odds have the Ravens’ win total at over/under 11.5, the highest win total in the NFL. That means Minter’s team would have to go at least 12-5 to exceed expectations in Year One.

In 2025 the Ravens finished a disappointing 8-9, leading to the departure of head coach John Harbaugh. Minter was brought in to take the Ravens back to where they were in 2024, when they went 12-5. That’s where expectations are this year.

Behind the Ravens, nine teams are tied for the next-highest win total: The Bills, Chiefs, Chargers, Lions, Packers, Rams, Eagles, Seahawks and 49ers all have their win totals set at over/under 10.5.

Flag football is very different from tackle football. And the current and former NFL players facing the U.S. men’s national flag football team are learning that.

The first half of the game between the U.S. team and the Wildcats (captained by Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels) did not go well for the pro players. The first drive by the Wildcats failed to result in a first down. The U.S. team went right down the field, with the NFL players struggling to master the skill of grabbing flags.

The opening drive by the U.S. team included multiple penalties against the Wildcats for excessive contact. After quarterback Darrell “Housh” Doucette III scored a touchdown on a running play (which included another penalty for illegal contact), Doucette chirped at non-football player Logan Paul. Paul removed Doucette’s sunglasses and threw them, drawing another foul.

Then came a pick six of Burrow, two plays later.

The Wildcats finally woke up, with a long touchdown pass by Burrow to DeAndre Hopkins, who easily boxed out the defender caught the undersized ball with one hand.

The U.S. team scored on the next drive, pushing the score to 19-6 after one half.

While the NFL players are generally bigger and faster and stronger (that said, Doucette seems to be able to weave through and around them), the tackle football players are clearly out of their element. If NFL playershope to represent the U.S. in the 2028 Olympics, they’ll need time to learn the game, and to figure out the rules. Which will take more than a casual commitment.

Free agent defensive end A.J. Epenesa is signing a one-year deal worth up to $5 million with the Browns, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports.

Epenesa, 27, has spent his entire career in Buffalo since the Bills made him a second-round pick in 2020.

In 2025, he played 16 games with two starts and totaled 32 tackles, 2.5 sacks, nine quarterback hits, two interceptions and four passes defensed.

In his career, Epenesa has recorded 135 tackles, 24 sacks, 53 quarterback hits, four interceptions, 21 passes defensed and five forced fumbles.

The Browns are also signing wide receiver/returner Tylan Wallace, Mary Kay Cabot of cleveland.com reports.

Wallace, who turns 27 in May, is following Todd Monken from Baltimore after spending his career with the Ravens.

A fourth-round pick in 2021, Wallace played 14 games with two starts last season. He caught four passes for 45 yards and a touchdown and averaged 24.6 yards on five kickoff returns.

He has only 22 receptions for 305 yards and two touchdowns in five seasons, with one punt return touchdown.

Wide receiver Hollywood Brown will be joining the Eagles, but his search for a team almost brought him back to the first stop in his NFL career.

Brown was a 2019 first-round pick in Baltimore and spent three seasons with the team before being traded to the Cardinals. That trade came after Brown requested a move because he didn’t feel the offensive system was the right one for him.

That system has changed since Brown left the team. Jesse Minter is now the head coach with Declan Doyle on the staff as the offensive coordinator and those changes may have helped lead Brown to think about a second stint with the Ravens.

“I was really considering going back to Baltimore,” Brown said on the Speakeasy podcast. “I got good relationships there. I really let my agent handle it until it got down to what it got down to. This is my second time in free agency, so I kinda don’t want the small talk. I let him deal with it. When it got down to who really wants me, who he thinks is really showing interest, then I want to talk and get involved.”

Brown didn’t delve into how close things came with the Ravens and what ultimately swayed him to the Eagles, although he did say that they had been his favorite team growing up and that he’s looking forward to playing with quarterback Jalen Hurts.

The Ravens have not added any wideouts to the roster this month, but being in the mix for Brown might be a sign that they are looking to bolster that group ahead of the draft.