Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Mike Sando doesn't think the Maxx Crosby trade saga is over (Hour 2)
20 Mar 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: Why are the Bears well-positioned to trade for Maxx Crosby?
This hour is brought to you by Vasectomy Clinics of Chicago.
At the end, they're like, yeah, I'll take you up. Joe was like, I'll take you up. You go see the head coach, whatever, just before you leave. I was like, hell yeah. I was like, that's what I want to say. What's up to him? So I went back up. And I dap him up, and you can just tell the energy was a little bit off. And I'm like, okay.
Chapter 2: What insights does Mike Sando provide about the Maxx Crosby trade fiasco?
I'm not thinking anything of it. Maybe he's just different. I don't know. I don't know him. Whatever. I go into the room. They sit me down on the couch, and he's like, man, I don't know how to say this, but one of our doctors has concerns with... You know, with the results and whatever, like with your knee, like some of them have, you know, are concerned about the future and da, da, da, da, da.
And, you know, we really want you and this is what it is. But, you know, we're just going to have to get more and more opinions.
Chapter 3: How did the Ravens' motivations affect the trade market?
Really, really inside stuff. Max Crosby on his podcast, The Rush, talking about his experience and how the trade fell through with the Baltimore Ravens. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score. And we go to our hotline and also Twitch, twitch.tv slash thescorechicago. That is where we can find Mike Sando joining us. He's the NFL senior writer for The Athletic.
He's a selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, officer for the Pro Football Writers of America, and he's covered every non-pandemic Super Bowl since the 1998 season. And oh, by the way, he has really good articles in The Athletic. Mike, we always enjoy having you on. Thanks for coming on.
Chapter 4: What inspired Mark Grote's 'Bears scale' for evaluating players?
Oh, it's great to be here. Thanks so much to talk about that. Crosby stuff's great.
Well, it is, and that was the impetus of why we wanted to have you on. It was a fever pitch, the want for Max Crosby here in Chicago. Bears GM Ryan Poles actually acknowledged discussions were had, and you had the article that came out in The Athletic, the Max Crosby trade fiasco, the Ravens' motivations, and how the NFL world reacted.
So what were your biggest takeaways from the work that you did on this piece?
We talked to a lot of people in the league and I just thought the most compelling, most likely scenario was that Max Crosby was basically a fallback for them if they couldn't get Trey Hendrickson. So when you think about free agency, it's more fluid than a trade situation.
Chapter 5: How does Jack Sanborn fit into the Bears' defensive strategy?
You can agree to a trade and lock that in as almost a placeholder, and then you don't really know what's going to happen with Trey Hendrickson in free agency. Does he have a deal in his pocket? Is he going to go somewhere else? But it looks to me like once they realize they can get Trey Hendrickson, They didn't want to take the risk associated with Max Krause, which there is a real medical risk.
I mean, the guy's had seven, eight surgeries, but everybody knew that. And subsequently... After this article published, I talked to team doctor types, and one of them said something I thought pretty compelling, which was anyone who is two months into a six-month rehab is going to fail a physical. And so Max Crosby had a surgery. It's not like he's having his leg amputated.
Chapter 6: What implications does the Crosby situation have for NFL team negotiations?
He had a surgery. He's got a timetable. He's obviously not going to probably pass a physical right now, because to pass a physical right now, it means you're cleared to play. You could play a game tomorrow. I think everybody knew that that's not the case with Max Crosby.
So unless you went in there and found like a crescent wrench that the surgeon left in there, you know, there shouldn't be something that's that surprising about him.
And if that's the case, Mike, if they if all along it was that they realized that they could get Trey Hendrickson. So you'd call off the deal. You say he failed the physical, which he might have.
you know per their doctors we know it's subjective from from team to team from what we've all learned I was interested in seeing one of the and you talked to a bunch of GMs and they agreed to do this without being named but one of them was very interesting I thought it says most believe that the unique situation would actually not have any long-term effect on teams doing business with Baltimore GM Eric DaCosta do you believe that that it won't have long-term effects I
Chapter 7: How do team relationships impact trade decisions in the NFL?
Well, I think you go into it with eyes wide open. So to me, if you really want a player and you want to do business with the Ravens, that's going to be based on your relationship with them and the trust factor, just like it would be for any deal. So if you don't have that good relationship with him, maybe you're going to be wary, but you might be anyway. And so that's why sometimes we see...
teams be trading partners more than once, right? Maybe Ryan Poles worked with so-and-so in another front office, and he feels great about adding Joe Tooney, right? He not only was there with them, but he knows the people there. There's a trust. The Chiefs aren't going to pull something like that surprising on Ryan Poles, probably, right? So I think that's the, you know, that's the only effect.
Chapter 8: What are the latest developments in the NFL following the Crosby saga?
But if someone thinks they can get a good deal from the Ravens, I think they're still going to do it. Now, maybe you protect yourself better. Like the Raiders could have insisted on, you know, a physical being done right away. Let's figure it out. Make sure you want to do this, right? Let's lock it in.
And then there's other mechanisms a team can use to put pressure on the other team in terms of how things are announced or put out there to really make it feel a little bit more binding than it is.
We're talking to Mike Sandoz, a senior writer for The Athletic, and discussing the piece that he wrote regarding the NFL's attitude and the understanding around what happened with Max Crosby and the trade that wasn't not heading to Baltimore and staying in Las Vegas. How do you think it also affected the rest of the free agent market that we saw?
I think had teams known that Crosby wasn't going to go, then they probably wouldn't have made the other decisions they did regarding some of the other free agent pass rushers who went off the board almost immediately after that trade was announced.
Yeah, no, I agree. I think it was a domino. Now, not everybody was going to be willing to pay that price. I think the two number ones was a little surprising, not only coming from Baltimore, but it seemed a little high. To me, there's a price point that's lower than that. And I'm not surprised, but you would think that... Maybe we could still see something. Maybe it's a one and not a second one.
Maybe there's something else involved there. He's a really good player. But yeah, it really took the leverage away from the Raiders to be able to maximize the price once the time passed. And then another team basically declared, this is too risky. Remember, there's human... components that go into this.
Now, after the ravens who are perceived, even if people are criticizing them, as having a top front office, which they are for a long time, now if you're a GM somewhere and you want to be the one out front to bring in Max Crosby,
the owner and others are going to be like holding you to this standard that if he has, if he, if the Ravens look like they were right and he has an injury that lingers this season, yeah, it can be your butt on the line. So it makes it harder, I think, for other teams to want to step up unless you're super established. So, you know, I would watch some of those.
Maybe there's an opportunistic team out there that, uh, that wants to do this. I think it's fascinating now that we're going into this NFL league meeting for the owners to get together in Arizona later this month. And one of the proposals is to allow them to trade even more into the future of draft picks. Is there a future pick? Is there some team that's a win now team
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