Lions Were ‘Never In The Game’ For Maxx Crosby Or Trey Hendrickson

The Lions didn’t end up pursuing the top available edge rushers this offseason and instead focused on getting long-term deals done for extension-eligible core players.

Lions president Rod Wood spoke about their offseason spending, and admitted they were never going to make a big external splash. He specifically brought up potential moves for DEs Maxx Crosby and Trey Hendrickson, saying they would have had to move on from on of their own to make it happen.

“When we’re looking at our cash and cap budget, we’re looking at it as is and as it will be with those guys knowing that we want to keep many of them, all of them if we can,” Wood said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “So if we had gone out and done the biggest – let’s say we did the Maxx Crosby trade or the Trey Hendrickson signing, that probably would have meant, which one of these guys are we going to let go?”

Wood was asked if they thought about delaying one of their long-term extensions they did to be more aggressive in free agency. While it might have made more moves possible for 2026, Wood said they “were never in the game” for high-priced options because of the limitations they would have to operate on over the next few seasons.

“Even doing that, it still would have been a difficult situation over the next two years with cash, so we just never were in the game for that, I’ll be honest with you.”

Despite the outside opinions that Detroit needs another top pass rusher to pair with DE Aidan Hutchinson, Wood doesn’t think they should spend on another premier pass rusher because of the restraints it would put on the rest of the roster.

“It’d almost be like you have a great starting quarterback as a backup, because there just aren’t enough guys to go around. And then if you pay one like we did with Aidan, to try and pay another one, let’s say you did and let’s say you now have $75 million or $80 million of your cap tied up with your pass rushers, you’re giving up something else. So would we love to have another great pass rusher? Yeah, but we’ll probably have to find him in the draft vs. we go out and pay top dollar for him.”

Crosby, 28, is a former fourth-round pick of the Raiders back in 2019 out of Eastern Michigan University. He was entering the final year of his four-year, $3,302,264 contract that included a $782,264 signing bonus and was set to make a base salary of $850,000 when he signed a four-year, $98.98 million contract extension with over $53 million guaranteed. 

Crosby was due base salaries of $22.236 million and $18.84 million in the final two years of the deal when he signed a three-year, $106.5 million extension in March 2025.

In 2025, Crosby appeared in 15 games for the Raiders and recorded 73 tackles, 28 tackles for loss, 10 sacks, one interception, six pass defenses, and two forced fumbles.

Hendrickson, 31, was selected with the No. 103 overall pick by the Saints out of Florida Atlantic in 2017. He finished his four-year rookie contract worth $3,106,288, which included a signing bonus of $706,284.

Hendrickson then signed a four-year, $60 million contract with the Bengals back in 2021 and went on to appear in the Super Bowl for the team. Cincinnati signed him to a one-year extension through 2025 in 2023. 

He was due a base salary of $15.8 million in the final year of his contract in 2025 when he and the team agreed to a $14 million raise to resolve a holdout. Hendrickson then signed a four-year, $112 million deal with Baltimore this offseason.

In 2025, Hendrickson appeared in seven games for the Bengals, recording 16 total tackles, four sacks, one forced fumble, and a pass deflection.