Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
How seriously should the Bears consider trading for Maxx Crosby? | Take The North
12 Feb 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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If it truly is all in play, that leads me perfectly in to a man named Max and not just Max. He has two X's in that name. That's double X, Max Crosby. The word out there, the word on the street is that he reportedly told Tom Brady, who is owner of the Raiders, the team for which Max Crosby plays.
that he will never play for the Raiders again, which has every team, just about every team in the National Football League, saying, huh, how could we make this work? And Chicago Dan is not the exception. Can the Bears make that work in any way, shape, or form? Max Crosby to the Bears.
This to me, as we sit here on February 10th, 2026, seems very far-fetched for a lot of reasons. The first reason being the Bears currently for the 2026 new league year, when the calendar flips next month in league standards, they are already over the salary cap. They've got to get under that before the new league year starts. And so you're already pressed up against the cap.
And yes, you can restructure some deals and you can move some money around and do stuff. But every time you restructure a deal, it basically puts the weight, on your cap in future years. And so you might want to do that for 2026, but it's going to come to really knock on your door and be really a heavy burden in 2028 or 2029 or whenever those bills come due to pay. The other part of this is
To get Max Crosby, you have to do more than just sign him. You have to trade him. And if you use the Parsons trade from last year as a little bit of a guideline, the Packers had to give up two first-round picks and a three-time Pro Bowler in Kenny Clark just to get Micah Parsons.
And then once they got Micah Parsons, they had to give him a contract with an average annual value of $47 million a year in it. So you talk about the cost.
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Chapter 2: What prompted the discussion about trading for Maxx Crosby?
of Micah Parsons for the Green Bay Packers, and they won nine games. And I get it. Micah got hurt, and you weren't anticipating him to get hurt. But that's the dice roll that you're making when you go all in. And so this is where ā I know you've brought this up on your show on the radio a bunch, that this swell of expectation in Chicago is going to need something that Hallis Hall ā
to pull it back down a little bit to remind people what the ultimate goal is. And while the goal is to win a Super Bowl next season, it's also to give yourself the maximum amount of swings to be in play to win a Super Bowl.
And when you do this all-or-nothing move, like it's going to be in the next couple years that we've got to win it or else, you're limiting your ability to contend and sustain success down the road. And so I'll leave it back over to you there. It just feels like this conversation has gotten ā
to an unrealistic level in the public forum, and it feels like you just need to remind people of the dynamics and the constraints and the parameters at play here.
Yeah, and you're right. It is predictable, and it's just now beginning. I mean, we haven't really had the big wave yet. It's too soon. As we said, the season just ended with the Super Bowl, but once everybody gets back on the NFL wagon, and of course the combine is coming right up, and then The draft. That's where I'll put it. Wait till the draft. That's where it's going to get real loud.
When the Bears come up, they're going to talk about the expectations that the Bears are going to have. We're going to hear things in Vegas about Caleb Williams being one of the favorites for MVP. It's all very possible and plausible. I think that... Yeah, it's hard to imagine a scenario where they would make that massive of a splash.
I feel like in general, the Bears are in hiring from within mode, wanting the players that they have. And that doesn't mean that there's not going to be
fresh players on this team i mean you alluded to it on the interior are they really gonna roll back everything that they had on that interior but grady jared is an example of one of the players that you look at and say just to use him and there's others dio dangbo yeah be healthy come back hire from with it the guys that you have a guy that you basically didn't have last year no dangbo much more will be expected from him i've talked about shamar turner
Yeah, it's the second round pick. Correct. That's not nothing. So you still have to rely on, depend on some of the guys that you have not maxed out on that are already in your locker room.
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Chapter 3: What are the financial implications of acquiring Maxx Crosby for the Bears?
You can throw Montez Sweat on that list. You can throw Grady Jarrett, obviously.
Billingsback is fantastic.
He's a free agent, and I don't necessarily expect him to be back. And then you look at the secondary, and you've got Jalen, and you've got Kyler. And if you decide to bring Bayard back again, now you need to return an investment on that. On the offensive side of the ball, you've got this interior of the offensive line that you've invested heavily in. You need ROI.
Caleb Williams is the number one pick in the draft. Well, guess what? Colson Loveland and Roma Dunze are top 10 picks. ROI. Those are the types of investments that you need to pay off in order to contend. Here's one other thing. I'm going to give you a little pop quiz here since we've gotten really into pop quizzes here lately.
I'm going to name a bunch of teams and you're going to tell me what they have in common. Seahawks, Rams, Packers, Ravens, Bills, Chiefs, Patriots, Chargers, Eagles, Lions, 49ers, Broncos, and Jaguars. All teams with a quarterback on their second contract. These are all teams that currently have better odds to win the 2026 Super Bowl than the Bears.
This is just a reminder because I think there's been this swell in this town that it's the Bears' time. They had this breakthrough season. They've got this really promising head coach. They've got this really talented quarterback who showed notable growth last season. You know who else's time it is? All those teams that I just listed for you, right?
Like every person in every one of those cities believes that they are in position to go make a run at a Super Bowl next year. And so you can't just sort of pat yourself on the back and say, we won a division. We had all these exhilarating moments. Therefore, we are the de facto favorite to go get the next Lombardi trophy.
That's not how it works in this league, and it's just a reminder because I think that the swell of euphoria here really since the season ended has been so massive, and it relates to what we talk about about offseason expectations. You just got to remind yourself that's the class that you're in.
There's a lot of teams that are expecting to have a chance to make a run next year, and that's why I bring that up in the context of the Crosby conversation because it's not like ā
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