After stepping away from the building for a few days, Maxx Crosby was back with the team this week and for the first time since stepping away on Thursday, Crosby spoke publicly on the Raiders’ decision to shut him down for the season.
Speaking to Jim Gray, who’s association with the Raiders is well documented, Crosby explained why the last week has been difficult for him from a personal and professional standpoint.
“For me, my love for the game has been since the day I started, since I could remember. My whole life has been football and sports. That has been my obsession since I was a little kid. Yeah, I’ve always — I mean, I’m an addict to the core. I’ve had an obsessive mindset and that addictive personality my whole life,” Crosby told Gray on the Let’s Go! podcast.
“But when it comes to football, there’s certain things that I truly believe in, and I feel like there’s core principles that you got to live by, and there’s a certain way the game needs to be played. And there’s a certain approach that you have when you go into the field. And the way you look at it, from my perspective, is you play to win. You play for your teammates, you put everything you have into the game, no matter what it is. There’s going to be bumps and bruises. You’re going to be banged up. That is a part of the game and the nature of the beast.”
With the way everything played out last week between Crosby and the Raiders, there’s no question that trade speculation is going to follow (and already has), but at least one media personality expressed this week that she doesn’t think Crosby is going anywhere in the offseason.
Former Raiders CEO Amy Trask posted on X this week that she doesn’t think Crosby will be traded and her reasoning had nothing to do with football.
Trask believes Crosby will remain with the Raiders going forward because of his business relationships with Tom Brady and Jim Gray, who are both minority owners of the team.
She even tagged them in her post.
What makes Trask’s comments more intriguing is that we already know she doesn’t think a lot of Gray based on remarks she made last month.
“There are, of course, on field problems, but there are also a lot of problems off the field behind the scenes,” Trask said on CBS Sports HQ in November.
“Many people assume when I say ‘behind the scenes’ that I’m referring to Tom Brady, but I’m not. The individual who orchestrated Tom’s purchase in the Raiders of the limited partnership interest in the Raiders, Jim Gray, has been working to orchestrate the purchase of an interest in the Raiders since Al [Davis] was alive and we were in the process of selling a minority interest in the team,” Trask continued.
“Well, he finally orchestrated the purchase and now he is involved in every aspect, or almost every aspect, of the organization. This is having an impact on the organization, not only off the field, but on the field. Pete Carroll is a very good head coach, but the problems we’re seeing on the field are related to the problems that are rampant throughout the organization. They’ve got to fix the off-field behind the scenes issues in order to give Pete a chance to be his best.”
Going back to his time in New England, Brady was accused of taking money from Patriots’ ownership through various business ventures in exchange for a team-friendly contract against the NFL’s salary cap.
That might not be something Crosby would consider, but if Crosby is tied to Gray and Brady in business relationships (like his upcoming flag football trip to Saudi Arabia in March), it’s possible those interests will influence where he plays football in 2026 and beyond.
x: @raidersbeat
