Kyle Goon: There’s no salvaging the Ravens’ Maxx Crosby mess

So this is how it feels to be the laughingstock of the NFL, the butt of every jape and gibe.

It feels bad. It feels really, really bad.

Only a handful of doctors and Ravens officials can say for sure what they saw in Maxx Crosby’s surgically repaired left knee that made them reconsider the team’s mega deal for the game-wrecking defensive end. But even if they made the right call — even if Crosby’s meniscus was hanging by a thread — you simply cannot say that Baltimore’s front office has done its job here.

The Ravens have been getting pummeled since the NFL’s legal tampering period opened on Monday. They’ve lost Tyler Linderbaum, Isaiah Likely, Charlie Kolar, Jordan Stout, Patrick Ricard, Dre’Mont Jones and more — and they’ve signed only one guard.

The one victory holding the whole operation together, lifting spirits in spite of a disheartening series of departures, was the trade for Crosby, widely regarded as the most ambitious, most exciting move of the offseason so far.

On the eve of what should have been the Ravens’ big triumph amid the losses on smaller fronts, we instead get a terse statement from the Las Vegas Raiders that Baltimore backed out of the deal. It’s added insult to injury that the Ravens haven’t even tried, as of late Tuesday, to explain this to their own fans.

Whatever you felt when Tyler Loop went wide right, whatever you felt when Mark Andrews dropped the two-point conversion pass, whatever you felt when Zay Flowers fumbled at the goal line — this is the front office equivalent of that feeling. It’s an all-time screw-up that makes Baltimore look either overly timid, underinformed or both.

Eric DeCosta has an army of scouts and evaluators at his disposal, people whose job it is to solicit information — including information not generally available to the public — about players they might be interested in. If you’re going to spend two first-round picks on a player, you had best do your homework.

Unless the Crosby deal simply materialized out of thin air last Friday, it should be assumed that the Ravens had time to figure out if Crosby’s knee (which sources as widely available as NFL Network said underwent a meniscus repair) was on track to be ready for the 2026 season.

Maybe the Ravens saw something truly surprising and unsettling when Crosby came to Baltimore to do his physical. But it would have had to be catastrophic to halt the momentum they’d built around bringing in one of the NFL’s premier pass rushers.

The big weapon you just got for your defensive-minded, rookie head coach? Gone. The Pro Bowler who had your returning core hyped? Vanished. The excitement you sparked in the fan base? Plummeting to record lows.

Maybe the Ravens can “recover” if they can get another pass rusher. Finding a way to sign Bengals defensive end Trey Hendrickson, for example, might salve some of the on-field wounds. But they’ve lost a chunk of their credibility as one of the NFL’s most competent organizations — something not so easily recovered.

By the way, does anyone else wonder what this means for Lamar Jackson, with whom the Ravens have been trying to hammer out an offseason extension? If you’re Jackson, are you thrilled about how this turned out?

The Ravens have done this before, in a trade for safety Brock Marion in 1997 (shoulder) and in a voided contract for receiver Ryan Grant (failed physical). But neither of those deals approaches even the shadow of the stakes of this one. The success of the entire offseason was hinging on it.

To justify this move, Crosby needs to miss significant time next season. Because if he plays, and if he plays well, and if he plays for a contender, the Ravens will never get the national football media to stop lambasting them.

If it was just cold feet, you’d bet that Crosby — who boasts one of the most ferociously competitive personalities in a league full of them — will make sure Baltimore regrets rescinding the red carpet.

DeCosta’s job is hard, especially this offseason. He’s had to balance a tightening salary cap, a star quarterback who doesn’t have an agent, a Pro Bowl center who wanted to make record-setting money, and a new coach hoping to fix a defense that lost its luster.

You could never have expected DeCosta to navigate this gamut perfectly, with all the plates spinning in the air. But at this point in the offseason, with many of the best free agents off the table and the Ravens losing key personnel, all we’re left with is a pile of shattered porcelain. Even if Baltimore pieces together some sort of backup plan, it won’t change that Plan A shattered just as it was taking shape.

We all thought the offseason started with a bang. It turns out what we heard was a crash.