Bears Confirm Maxx Crosby Pursuit; Cowboys’ Door Not Closed

As the countdown to free agency progressed last week, the trade rumors concerning Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby reached a fever pitch with the Ravens, Cowboys, and Bears being identified as Crosby’s top suitors. Obviously, there’s no need to recap everything that’s gone down since then (unless you’ve been living under a rock), but the failed trade to the Ravens has left Crosby’s future in a sort of limbo as Las Vegas attempts to determine if they still have a way to move him without giving up too much of the value they thought they had received last Friday night.

There were several teams rumored to be involved in trade talks for Crosby, but the Raiders were pretty tight-lipped about any specifics. As we got into February, the league’s conference champions in Seattle and New England were noted as potential teams interested in the veteran edge defender. Entering March, the Bears and Cowboys were added to the list of potentially interested teams, but by Friday, Dallas and Baltimore were the only ones confirmed to be involved., while the Bears were “believed to be in the mix.”

Confirmation was delivered yesterday, when Bears general manager Ryan Poles told reporters (via ESPN’s Courtney Cronin), “We were involved. We checked into it. We looked to see if it made sense, had some dialogue. I’ll leave it at that.”

After their first full year with defensive end Montez Sweat, in which he recorded his second-lowest career sack total (5.5), Chicago made the move to pair him with Dayo Odeyingbo, signing Odeyingbo to a big deal in free agency. While the move benefitted Sweat, who turned in a 10.0-sack 2025 campaign, Odeyingbo followed Sweat’s lead and gave the Bears his lowest single-season sack total since his rookie year (1.0) while only playing eight games before tearing his Achilles tendon.

The timetable for Odeyingbo’s return is still not clear, but even if he is back in time for the regular season, it’s understandable that the Bears might want to kick the tires on Crosby. While it’s hard to tell just how far those conversations went, what seems clear now is that they don’t still seem to be happening. The market has certainly cooled over the past 48 hours or so, and there hasn’t been any reported efforts to recontinue trade negotiations.

Initially, after Crosby became available again, the Cowboys looked unlikely to pursue the recovering pass rusher. Dallas had been the clear second-place finisher in the race, but something seemingly changed between last Friday and Wednesday. This was thought to be due, in part, to the fact that, in their evaluation of Crosby’s knee injury, the Ravens solicited the opinion of the Cowboys’ team physician, Dr. Daniel Cooper. After he advised on the scans, the Ravens backed out of the trade.

Because Cooper would then return to the Cowboys, it seemed obvious that Cooper’s opinion would remain unchanged, and the team would opt out of the running for Crosby. Additionally, since missing out on him the first time around, Dallas had traded for Packers edge Rashan Gary and added a few free agents. But the Cowboys’ decision doesn’t lie ultimately with Cooper and doesn’t appear to be impacted by Gary’s arrival in Dallas.

No. Instead, it’s Cowboys owner/team president/general manager Jerry Jones who makes those kinds of calls, and when asked if everything was over and done in regard to Crosby, Jones, ever the entertainer, couldn’t help but to leave them wanting more. Per Jon Machota of The Athletic, he told the media, “We’re pretty far down the road relative to what our plans are (for Crosby), so while I don’t anticipate (pursuing him), I don’t want to rule anything out.”

So, Jones left the door cracked, keeping it open to another pursuit of Crosby. Things are expected to be quiet for a while, though. So soon after the failed trade, the Raiders don’t want to try to trade him right this instant because his price tag has diminished a bit. They’ll instead work to get him closer to health, so that his improved medical outlook might bump his price back up a bit. On the other side of the table, the lack of interest in Crosby at this point is likely due to either genuine concern about Dr. Cooper and the Ravens’ conclusions or a home that the longer they wait, the more desperate the Raiders will be to get Crosby moved even if at a lower cost than they anticipated.