Making the decision to wave off the Maxx Crosby trade Tuesday, the Ravens will add the best edge rusher left available. Trey Hendrickson is signing with the team, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero report.
Hendrickson agreed to a four-year, $112MM deal with Baltimore, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports. That contract comes in south of where Crosby’s resides on the Raiders’ payroll. Hendrickson agreed to a contract that includes $60MM guaranteed at signing, Schefter adds. That will bring the 10th-year veteran pass rusher guarantees beyond Year 1 — something he targeted during his yearslong Bengals negotiating saga.
Incentives can take the two-year total to $64MM, Rapoport tweets, with Schefter adding eight-, 10- and 12-sack benchmarks are in place. A $500K incentive covers Hendrickson in sacks, meaning most of this deal goes to base value. The $60MM full guarantee ranks in the top 10 at the position, though it is not yet known where Jaelan Phillips and Odafe Oweh ended up in terms of locked-in money.
The Crosby fallout may have benefited Hendrickson. Most teams viewed the 31-year-old All-Pro EDGE as being set to land a deal in the $24-$25MM-per-year range, per The Athletic’s Dianna Russini. SI.com’s Albert Breer indicates $25-$27MM represented the range, helping explain why Hendrickson lingered in free agency. As of Tuesday, roughly a $10MM gap existed between Hendrickson’s camp and teams’ early offers.
As CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones notes, Crosby has about four years and $116MM left on his Raiders contract. The Ravens will shift to a free agent and retain their first-round picks, something the California Post’ Vincent Bonsignore notes does not appear to be going over well in some league circles. The Ravens stayed in touch with Hendrickson’s camp Tuesday, Russini adds, noting most in the building knew the ex-Bengal was set to join the team.
The Colts and Eagles are also believed to have made offers, Russini adds. An Indianapolis agreement would have reunited Hendrickson and Lou Anarumo, while Philly is still searching for a replacement for Jaelan Phillips. While those two clubs missed out, the Ravens have completed a shocking turn of events, ruffling feathers in the process.
The Bills, Buccaneers and Commanders were also involved in the Hendrickson derby, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler adds. Philly’s involvement here is classified as a late entrance, per Fowler, who adds the Colts believed they were close. The Bucs were offering a short-term deal. Hendrickson was connected to interest in joining the Bucs, as he is an Orlando native who played college ball at Florida Atlantic.
The Bills were also involved in a Crosby trade pursuit, while the Commanders pivoted to K’Lavon Chaisson shortly before the Hendrickson-Baltimore news emerged. Washington was in this market until the end, per ESPN.com’s John Keim, explaining the Chaisson deal’s timing.
It is worth wondering when the Ravens began discussing Hendrickson. Trades are not official until the start of the new league year (3pm CT today). It can be assumed Baltimore was all-in on Crosby, but Russini adds the team was familiar with the Raiders edge rusher’s rehab timeline. Crosby is recovering from meniscus surgery, a monthslong process that is not expected to affect his Week 1 availability, and some around the league view this as simply the Ravens getting cold feet on unloading two first-round picks. Hendrickson is nearly two years older than Crosby, but not costing two first-rounders is rather significant.
The Hendrickson market looked to see a mystery team emerge Tuesday afternoon, per NFL.com’s Mike Garafolo, who indicates teams became leery of this stealth suitor. That is widely believed to be the Ravens, who knew hours before the Raiders’ social media announcement they would be nixing the Crosby trade.
While this sets a bad precedent, such options are available to teams under a setup in which deals can be agreed to weeks in advance — as the 2021 Jared Goff–Matthew Stafford trade reminds — of the new league year before becoming official. The unraveling of the Ravens-Raiders’ Crosby trade took hours, Garafolo adds. Hendrickson came into the picture for the AFC North team at that point.
PFR’s No. 4-ranked free agent, Hendrickson scores a deal that lands between Phillips (our No. 3 FA) and Oweh in terms of AAV. His $28MM number is much better than where he was during most of his Cincinnati tenure. Hendrickson had signed a four-year, $60MM Bengals deal in 2021 before agreeing to a one-year, $21MM extension in 2023.
Hendrickson pursued an extension for years in Cincinnati, but the Bengals stood their ground and refused to offer post-Year 1 guarantees — an organizational precedent except in rare cases (Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase) — during last year’s standoff. A one-year, $29MM pact ended up being the late-summer resolution. The Bengals offered their top pass rusher a backloaded three-year, $95MM deal; he passed, leading to the August raise. The Bengals were linked to a 2026 Hendrickson franchise tag, but it would have come in well north of $30MM. Cincy passed and will move on, having agreed to sign Boye Mafe.
While Crosby probably has more long-term upside, Hendrickson put together a dominant run in the 2020s. The Bengals sack ace finished back-to-back seasons with 17.5 sacks and has two more campaigns (2020, 2021) with at least 13. After a belated breakthrough in a contract year (2020) with the Saints, Hendrickson helped the Bengals to Super Bowl LVI in his debut Ohio season. Hendrickson recorded at least 24 QB hits from 2020-24, topping out at 36 in managing to finish as Defensive Player of the Year runner-up on a bad 2024 Cincinnati defense.
Last year, hip trouble ended up shutting Hendrickson down after five games. The four-time Pro Bowler underwent core muscle surgery in December. That adds a layer to this edge rusher switcheroo, though the Ravens obviously do not expect Hendrickson to be delayed in coming back in time for the regular season. Wherever Crosby plays in 2026, he is expected to be on the field in Week 1 as well.
Never trading a future first-round pick for a veteran player in their 30-year history, the Ravens also have not been big spenders at the EDGE position since Terrell Suggs‘ Baltimore run ended. The team franchise-tagged Matt Judon but did not re-sign him, moving to Oweh’s rookie deal and a host of veteran stopgaps. This strategy, which included an Oweh trade midway through last season, led to Baltimore ranking 30th in sacks last season. The team will bet on Hendrickson recapturing his pre-injury form, while we wait to see where Crosby will end up.
Lmao
Hahahahahaha
Joe Burrow demanding a trade, again, in 3 2 1
Why? He’s been gone for a month. He’s a great pass rusher and barely nothing else coming off an injury.
But hey you got jokes.
dougdeb Wow must of touched a nerve. Ole glass Joe will be another Andrew Luck before long.
No nerve touched. He’s been gone for a month. They moved on already. A lot of you have not. If the Bengals pulled what the Ravens did with Crosby I bet you would have jokes galore.
What more do you need him to be? lol. His job is to get to the QB and he’s great at that, as you noted.
He had a bad hip injury. Unless he was milking it to be ready for FA how well do you think that ages?
Why? Cause Myles Garrett and TJ Watt / Alex Highsmith still exist in that division lmao
Watching Hendrickson light up the Bengals and Burrow after yanking him aroundthe last 3 or so years is gonna be so much fun for Trey
But hey not like Hendrickson would hold a grudge or hard feelings after being jerked around by Cincy right?
He signed an extension and then got mad when other players got more. That’s not on the Bengals. That’s on his agent. Who still did not get him more money on this deal than he wanted. Are you a DB Steelers fan?
Burrow has never demanded a trade
Sure he did. Once he saw Maxx Crosby was joining the division he had his trade request ready once the deal was final
He was relieved it was negated
And now he has his trade request ready again knowing Hendricksons best games are gonna come against Cincy after refusing to pay him all these years.
Trey getting ready to hold out in 3, 2, 1…
He won’t miss the Cincy games lmao of all places to sign he signed with BAL cause he gets to stick it to them by harassing Burrow the next 4 years twice a year.
Could have signed with Raiders Indy anywhere really nah he chose BAL and violence lmao
Pivoting from one old injured DE to another?
One of them doesn’t require adding 2 firsts.
I’m living in a world where people think 28 is old….
In pro football, it is. Both DE’s are coming off major injuries.
Trey is 31
Obviously there’s a good deal of risk here given his age and injury, but getting him for two million a year less than Jaelan Phillips and *his* injury history seems palatable. If Hendrickson can be even most of what he was before last year, this is solid.
Plus holding onto two first round picks makes it a lot easier to stomach a big veteran contract.
Wild. Just yesterday, multiple teams were interested but not willing to go more than $10 million.
They were definitely willing to go over 10 million, they were off by 10 million on the yearly salary that Trey wanted.
Yikes 😬
This is super sketchy. They had no idea they had a deal with Hendrickson when they voided the Crosby trade. Just kind of fell in their lap, right?
You beat me to it. I guess you can say all the timing just came together perfectly.
It doesn’t take long for a deal to come together. I mean you see FA agreements within 10 minutes of the tampering period opening.
I’m sure they checked in on him before the Crosby trade and maybe discussed terms. When the Crosby deal fell through they knew Hendrickson was still available, meaning his market hadn’t developed the way he and his agent hoped it would before the Crosby trade. Deals can come together very quickly when the range is narrowed down. Jaelan Phillips and Odafe Oweh both got four year deals on either side of this amount. That can be a fast negotiation when the edge market is more defined.
Unbelievably sketchy. Baltimore is a sleaze ball franchise. They knew about Crosby’s knee. The whole failed physical excuse is a patsy. End of story.
It’s blatant tampering the league better do something for something so blatant
At that number, I don’t see more than 45 million or so being guaranteed or 1.5 years if you prefer that metric.
Very surprised he got that much from the ravens after concerns over Crosby and his health and Hendrickson not being healthy most of last year
I think the raiders made a bunch of moves thinking Crosby’s salary would no longer be on the books, really hurts their negotiating position in a future Crosby trade combined with the results of the physical
… and now all has been revealed lol
This contract was the medical issue they found with Crosby.
100% and it’s kinda screwed up, once these deals are made they should have to be set in stone, we all know he just had surgery a couple months ago. It’s like last year Milton Williams agreed with the panthers and then backed out a hour later when the patriots called and offered more.
this will cover up their underhandedness around Crosby
I would not say “Cover Up”….I would say “Highlight”…..They decided they could get Hendrickson for about the same $ per year and keep 2 1st Round Picks.
Maybe Crosby REALLY did have far more issues than expected when the did the Physical…..But the Hendrickson deal really brings that into question.
Not to mention Baltimore sports history (MLB and NFL) of voiding deals based on failed physicals.
they acting like nothing happened bruh
I suspect this deal was worked out before the Ravens announced Crosby “Failed” his physical.
Let’s hope he passes his physical…
This situation will force the NFL to reevaluate the tampering period rules. Bad on Vegas for assuming that trade went through, but it’s also a way for a team to hose a division rival’s cap by failing the physical (for a guy everyone knew was healing from an injury).
I couldn’t agree more Sherm. All it takes is one team to do something like this for the floodgates to open. That’s not me saying it will happen or that I think it’s likely because I don’t. Not on a league wide scale anyways. But I do think it could become an issue moving forward even if it’s just a couple of teams. The trickle down effect could be huge. Who know how many of those Raider FA agreements would’ve taken place if a Crosby trade wouldn’t have been in place? And who knows how teams pivoted to other players based on those Raider deals being agreed upon? A “tampering” period should not exist.
Eagles trade for Maxx Crosby?
Ravens should be thankful and draft their new starting C at 13 now.
There’s no C who is worth the 13th pick.
Shenanigans! I call shenanigans!!!
Hey Farva!! What’s that thing called that Monkeys Uncle said, with all that goofy stuff that went on with the Maxx Crosby to Ravens trade?
Lol, so THAT’s the real reason why the Crosby deal fell through.
Yeah this feels shady at best….
Sllllllap!! LeSean McCoy says to leave his name out your damn mouth!
I hope the other 31 teams now either blacklist the Ravens for trades or assign a penalty/premium to them ie for everyone else it’s x round pick, but for the Ravens it’s one round higher
Something tells me this will backfire on the Ravens, spectacularly… They just paid a 31 year old DE, coming off injury, 64 million guaranteed… This could be Vaughn Miller to Buffalo, all over again.
COMMENTS DEFINITELY OPEN!!!
Quote the Ravens…”nevermore”!
Dirty deeds done dirt cheap! Ravens are pure garbage! They intentionally nixed the Crosby trade on false claims to go cheaper on Henderickson….NFL needs to investigate….this is BS
31 years old and $28M AAV is nasty work by him and DeCosta. I think they’ll regret this. Seems like a Kyle Vanden Bosh type signing in terms of thinking you’ll be getting the same player he was in Cincinnati and fizzling out.
The Baltimore Ravens have also announced that they have voided a contract with Olivia Newton John, because of being overly eager about physicals.
So clearly they had Crosby, kick the tires on Hendrickson and found out that he would sign for less than Crosby and then backed out of the deal. Pretty obvious what happened here
Shady as f. Ravens are clowns
I absolute LOVE that this has pissed off other teams… especially those in the AFC North. Let’s get these rivalries back to the glory days of hating on one another’s teams with fire in our bellies!