LAS VEGAS — The Raiders rolled out the red carpet for Klint Kubiak on Tuesday, surrounding their new head coach with franchise legends ranging from Marcus Allen to Howie Long, and a star-studded podium featuring multiple Super Bowl rings and enough Hall of Fame jackets to fill a walk-in closet.
In front of Kubiak sat a contingent of current Raiders that included young running back Ashton Jeanty.
Every one of them was eager to hear from a new boss just a few days removed from helping lead the Seahawks to a Super Bowl championship. And his plans for taking the Raiders to similar heights.
But it was just as conspicuous who wasn’t in the auditorium as who was there. Namely, Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby.
The prolific pass rusher was lurking somewhere in the Raiders facility on Tuesday and even joined Kubiak for a cup of coffee before the club introduced him as its new boss.
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“Loved talking ball with him and look forward to continuing those conversations,” Kubiak said. “He was the first one in here this morning working out, so that fired me up.”
But once the cameras began rolling, Crosby remained behind the scenes. Only he knows if it was out of respect for Kubiak’s big moment or, perhaps, a statement about his future with the Raiders.
The latter can’t be ruled out after reports surfaced during Super Bowl week that Crosby isn’t keen on yet another Raiders rebuild, and could have his heart set on forcing a trade to a team better positioned to maximize the peak years he has left.
Crosby is under contract through the 2029 season, although it’s essentially a two-year deal for roughly $60 million guaranteed for the 2026 and 2027 seasons. Not only is it an easy contract to trade — or assume if you are a team interested in trading for him — multiple league sources have told The Post that Crosby’s market is robust enough to expect the price tag for him to include at least two first-round picks.
Yes, he is coming off a season that was cut short by a knee injury that sidelined him for the last two games and required subsequent meniscus surgery. But all signs point to Crosby being ready to go in time for next season.
Trading Crosby, should he ask for that, would facilitate Crosby’s wishes while also helping to expedite the Raiders’ rebuild.
For all of those reasons, it is not out of the realm that Crosby has played his last game with the team that drafted him in the fourth round out of Eastern Michigan in 2019.
Kubiak was complimentary of Crosby and said that wanting to work with him is a “no-brainer.”
“We want him to be a part of our success going forward,” Kubiak said. “There’s no doubt about that. He’s one of the best players in the NFL.”
But it might not be as easy as that.
Crosby will be 29-years-old before the start of next season, and has already been through multiple Raiders head coaches and regimes and organizational rebuilds. All it’s gotten him over seven turbulent seasons is one playoff appearance and one winning season.
No disrespect to Kubiak, or even Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who the Raiders expect to be the linchpins of their latest rebuild, but would anyone blame Crosby if he sized things up, did all the math in his head, and concluded his window of success no longer vibes with the Raiders’ timeline?
And asked for a trade as a result?
Raiders owner Mark Davis said Monday he hasn’t had any conversations with Crosby along those lines. Although he qualified that by saying he wouldn’t talk about it even if he did.
“What I talk about in the locker room stays in the locker room,” Davis said.
When asked if he wanted Crosby to remain in the fold, Davis said yes. But he didn’t elaborate beyond that.
“Maxx has been a great, great Raider,” Davis said. “He is a great Raider. He’s gone through a lifetime of development here for seven or eight years, and he still is a Raider. So it’s all good.”












