The Dallas Cowboys’ defense hit a new low in Thursday night’s 24-16 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the aftermath has already turned into trade speculation around one of the NFL’s most disruptive pass rushers.
Dallas came into Week 5 with momentum from the previous week’s win and as a heavy favorite against a winless Tampa Bay team starting an undrafted rookie quarterback. Instead, the Cowboys’ defense never took control.
The pass rush barely showed up, the secondary gave up chunk plays, and the run defense unraveled at key points. Tampa Bay piled up 419 total yards and 241 on the ground at AT&T Stadium, with Bucky Irving powering the day with 165 rushing yards and a long second-half touchdown.
The result pushed Dallas to 2-3 and left Jerry Jones sounding bluntly frustrated afterward. “Extraordinarily, extraordinarily disappointed,” Jones said after the game, according to the team’s official site. “You really do need to get it done when it’s there to take.”
Former Cowboy Chris Canty went even harder on ESPN, calling it a historically bad loss.
Against that backdrop, Heavy’s Max Dible floated a blockbuster idea that would send Maxx Crosby to Dallas. The proposal has the Cowboys giving up their remaining 2027 first-round pick and their 2028 first-rounder to the Raiders in exchange for the edge rusher.
Crosby has continued to play at a high level for Las Vegas, where he has already posted two sacks and a forced fumble this season. The Raiders are 3-1, and Crosby remains one of the league’s most disruptive edge defenders.
Dible pointed to Dallas’ ugly numbers when making the case. “The Cowboys have a total of five sacks through five games this season.
They are minus-3 in turnover differential and have created just two takeaways on the year, which is tied for last. They just lost to an undrafted rookie QB in his second start at home in primetime.
The Cowboys have a great offense, and they have spent dearly to build it. They have a garbage defense but keep spending dearly to try and improve it,” he wrote.
The idea also has a personal angle. Crosby grew up in the Dallas area after moving to Colleyville as a teenager, and the Cowboys previously lost out on him to the Ravens earlier this year. Trade talk around Crosby has lingered since that near miss.
Crosby has said he wants to stay with the Raiders, but Las Vegas had previously shopped him for two first-round picks. If Dallas were to pull off a deal of this scale, it would give the Cowboys’ pass rush an immediate jolt and provide a badly needed boost as the schedule gets tougher.
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The Cowboys loss to Tampa Bay only turned up the volume on a conversation that has been building around one of the NFLs most disruptive defenders, with Dallas once again short on edge pressure and looking the part of a team that could use help in a hurry. Jerry Jones sounded disappointed afterward, and that frustration has fed the kind of trade chatter that always follows a game like this, especially when a proven pass rusher is sitting on another roster and drawing attention from a team with a glaring need.
For the Raiders, the noise matters because Maxx Crosby is not just a name in speculation, he is the centerpiece of a defense and one of the most recognizable players on the roster. Any idea of moving him would put Las Vegas at the center of a huge debate about where the team is headed and how much it would take to even consider listening, while the talk around Dallas keeps circling the same basic question: how far would the Cowboys go to fix a problem that showed up again on a national stage? [Read more 🡒]