A Maxx Crosby Bears Trade Sounds Great — Why History Says It Won’t Work

Maxx Crosby will be one of the central talking points of the 2026 offseason. He’s been a phenomenal presence for the Las Vegas Raiders since being drafted. Across 110 games, he has 69.5 sacks, 164 quarterback hits, and 133 tackles for a loss. He’s been widely considered one of the four or five best pass rushers in the NFL for most of the past decade. Sadly, he is also one of the most underachieving. In all that time, his teams have managed to reach the playoffs only once. The 2025 season felt like rock bottom, with Vegas earning the league’s worst record.

What made it worse was their decision to shut Crosby down before the season ended despite his protestations. It was a blatant decision to tank in his eyes, prompting him to walk out of the facility. Most people took that as a glaring sign that the superstar was finally ready to demand a trade out of town

There is no question Maxx Crosby would be a hot commodity.

Pass rushers of his caliber almost never become available in their prime. It is for this reason that many people in the Chicago Bears sphere of influence are practically demanding the team put together a package to pursue him. Current estimates indicate it would cost at least a 1st round pick and likely another high selection to even get a seat at the table. Micah Parsons went to Green Bay last offseason for two 1st rounders and DT Kenny Clark. Crosby is a bit older, so he won’t command as much, but that is the general ballpark.

Chicago was tied for the fifth-fewest sacks in the NFL this year with 35. Montez Sweat had 10 of those. Nobody else had more than six. It was a glaring problem that always spelled their eventual doom in the playoffs. You can’t win Super Bowls without a consistent pass rush. After reaching the divisional round, the prevailing wisdom is that now is the time to go all in. Put together a strong package for Crosby, pair him up with Sweat, a get the defense on the same level as the offense to go after that Lombardi trophy.

History shows this kind of trade rarely works.

What is the goal of such trades? That is obvious. To win a Super Bowl, right? To determine whether making such a sacrifice is worth it, you must look at how previous such blockbusters have fared. Since 2000, there have been six trades that fit the criteria of an elite pass rusher being dealt for a large package. The Parsons one to Green Bay is being withheld because not enough time has passed to truly determine whether it was a success or failure. Here were the outcomes of those six deals.

Keep this in mind. In those three instances where the pass rushers made their deepest playoff runs, they were on a team that had a top-tier quarterback. Abraham played with Matt Ryan. Allen played with Brett Favre. Miller played with Matthew Stafford. Make no mistake. All six men produced extensively with their new teams. It didn’t seem to matter. Their impact did improve the bottom line, but seldom enough to push them over the top. That makes the price tag difficult to justify.

The draft or free agency is how the Bears should approach the problem.

Trades are fun. They create all sorts of buzz. Adding a big name to your team leads to hope and high expectations. The problem is that football remains the ultimate team sport. One player outside of the quarterback can rarely impact team fortunes so extensively that they become instant champions. Look at the previous ten Super Bowl champions. You’ll find that exactly zero of them found their best pass rusher on the trade market. All were either drafted by said team or signed as a free agent.

The NFL is about maximizing the value of your resources. Finding a great pass rusher should be done in one of two ways. Either spend one pick trying to find them in the draft, or pay a ton of money in free agency. Trading for Maxx Crosby would be doing both at the same time. The Bears would not only have to pay his large contract ($35 million cap hit in 2026) but also give up multiple high picks to make it happen. That isn’t smart team-building. The Bears have already learned this lesson before.

At best, the player improves your team by 2 or 3 games every year. At worst, he underperforms, leaving you right where you started and with fewer assets to keep the team competitive. That is how the Bears fell apart in the years following the Mack trade. Though their QB and head coaching situation is better than it was in 2018, it’s still not enough to justify an all-or-nothing swing for Maxx Crosby. The end has rarely justified the means. He is a great player, but has proven over the years that his brilliance hasn’t made his team significantly better.

Poles must fix the Bears’ evaluation issues.

He is not the first GM to constantly lean on veteran players to fix the team’s pass-rush problems. It has been a recurring issue for the past 30 years. Only one player they’ve drafted in that span has produced more than 30 sacks in a career (with the team). That was Alex Brown. Leonard Floyd cleared that mark, but he did so after leaving Chicago. Developing pass rushers has been a persistent weakness for the Bears. That is why they sign a Julius Peppers, trade for a Khalil Mack, and trade for a Montez Sweat.

Their evaluation abilities have underachieved to a degree that’s sometimes stark. Since 1990, they have taken an edge rusher in the 1st round five times. Alonzo Spellman was a solid player but nowhere near elite and was selected over Robert Porcher, who had 95 sacks in his career. John Thierry, Michael Haynes, and Shea McClellin were outright busts. Haynes went ahead of Calvin Pace, and McClellin went over Chandler Jones. This isn’t down to bad luck. This organization hasn’t been good at pinpointing pass rushers for a long time.

Throwing a bunch of picks at Maxx Crosby won’t solve the underlying issue. They will have to confront it sooner or later. It might as well be now, in what many feel is a deep defensive line class.