The 49ers are staring at a tough reality in the NFC West, and one NFL Network voice thinks the answer is simple: go get Maxx Crosby.
Brian Baldinger made the case on 95.7 The Game that San Francisco can’t afford to sit back while the Los Angeles Rams load up and the Seattle Seahawks continue to look like a force. In his view, the 49ers need to answer the division’s moves with one of their own, and Crosby is the kind of player who changes the conversation immediately.
"You're in an arms race with the Rams right now," Baldinger said. "This is like a military arms race trying to keep up.
I don't know that Maxx Crosby is available or could be had, I have no idea. All I know is I was at the Sack Summit in Las Vegas a month ago, and nobody could beat him off the line of scrimmage.
Everybody challenged him - Jared Verse, pick a guy that was out there - nobody could beat him off the ball. Nobody.
He won, and they had an open competition, Maxx - I got it on video - he beat everybody off the ball."
Baldinger pushed back just as hard on the knee concerns that helped derail a possible deal with the Baltimore Ravens earlier this year. He pointed to his own career as proof that medical opinions don’t always tell the whole story.
"I know Baltimore basically said that his knee is shot," Baldinger said. "I don't see it.
I failed a physical coming in after my sixth year, failed a physical, and played six more years. They said my knee was shot.
Everybody evaluates these things differently. But I feel like if you had a chance to get Maxx Crosby, he becomes your best defensive player immediately.
It's infectious, the way that he plays the game, the way that he practices. Shanahan's not going to beat him in the building.
On any given day, he'll beat everybody in the building. He's got the Michael Jordan mentality."
The price tag is the real question. The Ravens had been linked to a package of two first-round picks, but that now looks too steep after the way the situation played out. Bleacher Report’s Alex Kay suggested a different framework: a 2027 first-round pick, a 2027 second-round pick and a 2028 third-round pick to land Crosby after the Rams’ Myles Garrett move.
Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated took a more measured view, saying he liked the idea "in principle" but would rather San Francisco wait to see how its aging core holds up before shipping out draft capital. Crosby’s contract only adds to the cost, since he signed a three-year, $106.5 million extension with $91.5 million guaranteed after the Baltimore deal fell apart.
The urgency is obvious for San Francisco. Nick Bosa is still working back from an ACL injury, and Mykell Williams is on the physically unable to perform list and will miss at least the first four weeks of the season. For now, the edge group is thin, with a hobbled Bosa joined by 2026 rookie Romello Height, Sam Okuayinonu and Keion White as the only viable pass rush options.
Crosby would be expensive, and he’d come with real risk. But for a team trying to keep pace in a brutal division, the upside is hard to ignore.
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