- 9 hours ago
The GBAG Nation discussed the latest trade buzz surrounding Maxx Crosby and the Cowboys’ potential pursuit of the Raiders star. They broke down reports that multiple teams have made strong offers and debated whether Dallas could still land Crosby or pivot to other pass-rush options. They also discussed possible trade packages, cap implications, and whether the Raiders are waiting for a bigger offer before making a deal, and more.
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00:00For the first time in 15 years, the Cowboys are pursuing the biggest name available to kick off an NFL
00:06offseason.
00:07It's historic.
00:08I mean, last time this happened, shoot, I mean, the Mavs and Dirk had just won the championship.
00:15That's how long ago this was, boys, that they were in on Nnamdi Asamoah in the strike-shortened offseason of
00:222011.
00:23I'll never forget it. I was in the hospital.
00:24Well, Abby was being born, and Richie and Grego, Rage, in the afternoons are reporting that, you know,
00:32Jerry live on the air that afternoon was talking on the phone and handing phones back and forth,
00:37and they were, like, kind of high-fiving on the turf at the Alamo Dome in San Antonio that they
00:43got the deal done.
00:44That's how long it's been.
00:45I remember that because we were all sitting in the press box.
00:48I think, Dawson, you guys were on the opposite side of the stadium, right?
00:52Yeah.
00:53You had this broadcast position up on the opposite, and we were all in the press box.
00:57We were watching them hand the phone to, like, Rob Ryan.
01:01Like, they were practicing and just passing the phone around like they –
01:05and I was talking with Mike Lombardi, who was with – at the time, Mike was in Philly, and he's
01:12going,
01:13man, he goes, you don't have this deal done.
01:16This is not –
01:17Wow.
01:17This is not – because I was texting with Mike.
01:20I said, the Cowboys are acting like they got this done.
01:22He goes, no, this is Philly.
01:24This is – Philly's got this one.
01:26And they did.
01:27And the Cowboys actually dodged a bullet that day, which is a painful reminder that sometimes these deals will not
01:32go your way.
01:32They ended up signing Brandon Carr, I think, the next offseason to find their free agent corner.
01:37And since then, it's been absolute crickets.
01:39No more than $6 million spent on an outside defensive free agent this entire time.
01:44But the Cowboys are in the big game this year.
01:46So, it's worth talking about some more with you.
01:49Segment's brought to you by the Frankels.
01:51If you've been injured in a car or truck wreck, call the Frankels first, 214 or 817-333-3333.
01:58There's never an out-of-pocket cost.
02:00They only get paid when you win.
02:01The Frankels are the go-to car and truck wreck attorneys in Dallas.
02:04Rangers getting blanked.
02:05They've been putting up a lot of runs, but not today, as the defending AL champion Mariners got them shut
02:11out here in the bottom of the fifth inning.
02:14Rangers have managed to scrape out two hits.
02:17The Rangers have managed to get two hits, but that is it.
02:21All righty.
02:23Diana Rossini said two things of interest, really.
02:26To isolate it, Cowboys remain very interested.
02:29And GMs believe the Raiders are willing to work on a deal.
02:32The idea from yesterday that the Cowboys were close, but the price got too high, that either evolved or expired
02:40or, you know, I don't know exactly how that was phrased by all of the insiders.
02:45But for a while yesterday, we felt like, yeah, price got too high.
02:48Teams are willing to do more than what the Cowboys are willing to do.
02:52You know, but then, you know, the report comes that the Raiders are willing to work on a deal.
02:58That means this thing is, you know, still fairly early in the bidding war stages where, you know, now we
03:07find out the Cowboys are still interested and maybe ready to have more conversations about bringing Max Crosby to the
03:14Cowboys.
03:14So, you know, that is, I think, one thing to celebrate if you're a Max Crosby super fan.
03:20And I don't know, I get caught up on it and I forget that there are lots of other great
03:24options to team build out there, you know, like, and Joseph Hoyt Morning News wrote a piece today about how,
03:32you know, the Cowboys argument for and against trading for Max Crosby.
03:38And, you know, some of the details in this story are very interesting.
03:42And the case for adding him is very legitimate, you know, and I think he makes some great points here.
03:47But he writes, the problem for the Cowboys, they have a lot of needs.
03:50And while they're opening up cap space to be aggressive, Crosby would still not be cheap.
03:56He's scheduled to have a cap hit of $35.7 million.
04:00So, you know, you've got to take that under consideration if you're a fan and you're hoping for the absolute
04:07best outcome on this.
04:08Is that the best way to spend $35 million?
04:11We started here with Micah last season with Jerry Jones saying four or five players are better than one.
04:19Would that not still hold up with Max Crosby?
04:21Sorry to cut you off, Brian.
04:21You wanted to jump in.
04:22No, I was going to say something, Dawson, and I apologize.
04:24I didn't mean to jump in there on you like that.
04:26But I know there's some really, really, really smart people that have looked at his contract.
04:32And I know we talked about the reduction when you make a trade.
04:36You can take the number.
04:37They can restructure it, yeah.
04:38There's something to do with his contract with being able to take the money he's making and then prorate it.
04:47Yeah.
04:47You know, so.
04:48Or convert it into something else.
04:49Yeah, convert it, then you prorate it.
04:50You make it a signing bonus.
04:51Yeah, you can spread it out over five years.
04:53Exactly.
04:53You know, like I say, there's a lot smarter people than me that know all this stuff.
04:58And I'm like, okay, if that's something you can do, and we talked about it, then I can say you
05:07do owe it to yourself to at least explore it.
05:10Yeah, I think every contract in the NFL now is eligible for this flip of a switch, as Fish used
05:16to call it all the time.
05:17You can turn the year's salary into a signing bonus and spread that cap hit out over five years.
05:23Yeah.
05:23So any salary you see, it can essentially be made 20% of that.
05:27And 20% of $35 million is $7 million.
05:31Right.
05:31So, yes, that's a tremendous edge for the Cowboys.
05:34And if that's what they want to do, I think there's a way around this.
05:37Maybe that's what all teams are looking at right now.
05:40Yeah, I would think the Eagles, for sure.
05:41Maybe that's how Philadelphia's in this.
05:43Yeah, yeah.
05:44And if that's the case, they should be doing that with George Pickens as well as Jared Sandler stepping in
05:48the booth here.
05:49Looks like he's heading home.
05:50I think he's heading back to the table.
05:52Good to see you.
05:53We love you.
05:53Job well done.
05:55Mission accomplished for Jared Sandler here.
05:57A must follow on Rangers Twitter.
05:59But, yes, you know, and I was going to say, I've said a couple of times this week,
06:04that it didn't look like you could add Max Crosby, re-sign your kicker,
06:09and then have any amount of money left to make an impactful push onto your team.
06:14As far as adding players.
06:15But if you would do that with Max Crosby and then do that with George Pickens,
06:18I mean, what's 20% of $28 million?
06:21It's around, what, $5 or $6 million.
06:23Yeah.
06:24So you could free up all kinds of dough.
06:26If you get a long-term deal done with George.
06:28Yeah.
06:28Yeah.
06:28Absolutely.
06:29Yeah.
06:29Yeah, you know, and maybe it's five years and $35 million,
06:34but the first year's cap hit is only $7 or $10 million,
06:38and now you've freed up $18 million more.
06:41You've freed up $28 million more with the Max Crosby cap gymnastics,
06:45and now all of a sudden it's like, yes, we can afford two more $15 to $18 million players.
06:51And then if you do the same thing with them, you can get excited.
06:55There is an endless supply of money if you just keep creating more void years,
07:00and we'll see if the Cowboys want to, in fact, do that.
07:03What did you make of the fun stuff there with social media
07:09and Max Crosby listening to Shibuzi that was playing a song with a lyric about being a Cowboy,
07:15and while he's listening to it, Crosby zooms in to show what appeared to be light-up stars
07:20plastered to his ceiling.
07:22Maybe he's got, like, one of those space rooms for his daughter, you know, isn't he, a girl dad?
07:26Oh, yes.
07:27You know, so you go into the playroom, and it's like we got it blacked out with stars on the
07:31wall
07:31or stars on the ceiling.
07:33I think that's pretty cool.
07:34We've had a couple of those toys over the years.
07:36Yeah, I wonder if this is part of, like, the Trey Wingo a couple nights ago
07:40thinking maybe the Cowboys were in the catbird seat to make a deal,
07:43and then things have changed, and maybe he was thinking that that was going to happen,
07:47and now, obviously, we continue to wait and see.
07:50And I really don't know how much has changed.
07:53I think you've got Vegas is just kind of on their own time.
07:57It's Vegas.
07:58They've got to get something done by Monday if they really want to get this done
08:02or else everybody else is going to go, and they're just holding this thing up.
08:05They're waiting to see if somebody comes in with an anti-offer,
08:08but I think there's a mutual – I don't think there's been an official offer to your question, Brian.
08:13I think there's an understanding between both teams of what the deal would look like,
08:17and the Cowboys aren't willing to go up to X amount of points.
08:21I love the idea of them waiting until after the draft, though.
08:24And they did it last year with George Pickens.
08:26It allows us to keep this year's draft capital, and Jerry and Mark Davis are buddies.
08:32And Jerry told Al Davis, I'm going to take care of your son.
08:34There's a mentorship role.
08:36So what if Jerry goes to Mark and says, man, you might be able to get more after the draft
08:39because teams will be willing to give up next year's draft assets more.
08:42You're going to get Mendoza.
08:43You're going to be horrible next year.
08:45You're going to lose Crosby and not have a draft pick.
08:48You're going to be really bad.
08:49You're going to get the best tackler, edge, or wide receiver.
08:51Like, this is going to help you out long-term team building to make sure.
08:54And here's what we're going to do.
08:56Me and you, we're going to combine up here in about maybe June.
09:01Maybe it's in May.
09:03And we're going to light the league on fire.
09:06Everybody's going to be talking about the Cowboys and Raiders.
09:08Right now, free agency's about to happen.
09:10And there is nothing we can do to increase how much people are going to be talking about the NFL
09:15over the next 10 days.
09:16If you just stick with me, we're going to time this out for a dead period between the draft and
09:20training camp
09:21and absolutely dominate the news cycle for 10 days there.
09:24I just wonder, because if Brian's sources are saying they haven't made an offer, all right,
09:29and maybe they're slow playing it, sure, the Raiders might be holding out until the start of free agency,
09:35or Jerry might have convinced them we can crush the news cycle.
09:38We're already squeezing that lemon dry right now.
09:41We're getting all this juice, you know?
09:43Like, even if you traded Max Crosby right now to the Cowboys,
09:47I don't think you could get any more media attention than we got right now.
09:50Right.
09:50We're crushing this.
09:51Let's come back and do it again here when we execute the deal.
09:55And, you know, maybe more draft capital will be available from these other teams
09:59if you create a bidding war after they already get to use, you know, this year's picks.
10:04And I think it's a great strategy, you know?
10:06If you need to make the 2026 team as good as possible, you use your two picks,
10:12and then you trade next year's capital to make the 2026 team better.
10:15Yeah, and you have a guy from over the cap, Jason from over the cap.
10:20He says, I think there is some confusion on player trades.
10:23You do need the cap room to acquire the player.
10:26So you would need $30.8 million, give or take a bit, to get Crosby.
10:31Then the restructure happens after the fact.
10:34So you still ultimately get the cap relief,
10:36but you have to have the established requisite amount of money from a cap standpoint
10:41to actually execute the trade.
10:43So that's something to consider.
10:44I don't know how much more the Cowboys would need to do to get to that number.
10:48Well, it'd be $20 million, but even Archer just added to that
10:50and said there's things teams that are trading for that player can do beforehand
10:54to the contract to facilitate the trade,
10:56which I guess is what the Packers did with Rodgers before the Jets.
10:59So that's when the Cowboys can go and flip that switch in Crosby's deal
11:02to bring that thing down, which is, what, $23 million from $30 to $7.5 or whatever it is?
11:08Yeah.
11:08So, boom, there you go.
11:09They're good.
11:10Okay, so the Raiders can adjust the contract before trading.
11:12The Raiders flip the switch in order to help you facilitate the trade.
11:16Yes.
11:17Very interesting.
11:18Makes sense.
11:18Very interesting.
11:19Okay, the case for not adding him from Joseph Hoyt,
11:24problem for the Cowboys, they have a lot of needs,
11:26and while they're opening up cap space to be aggressive,
11:28Crosby still wouldn't be cheap.
11:31The case for getting him is pretty damning.
11:34Ezraku, Leofau, Houston, and Isaiah Land, and letting Clowney go,
11:39you got a big old bag of nothing over there at edge.
11:44And, you know, if Clowney was your leading sacks guy last year,
11:49he's going to be gone as well.
11:51But there are a number of guys out there,
11:52and there are more than one way to skin this cat.
11:55I just want to see Crosby come aboard and the Cowboys have answers
11:59at all the other spots so they can finally make a legitimate push
12:02to having the best roster in football.
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