In his hit song from 1962, Elvis Presley sang it, “Return to Sender.”

In 2026, in a surprise move in the National Football League, the Baltimore Ravens did it.

They sent Maxx Crosby back to the Las Vegas Raiders after making one of the more interesting trades of the off-season. Baltimore had acquired the Raiders defensive weapon for a pair of first round draft choices.

Crosby had a jagged ending to what appeared to be the end of his days in Las Vegas. He played last season knowing that he was going to have to undergo surgery after the season to repair his knee. Still, he played with the injury and was most vocal in his disappointment with his team when the organization decided to sit him late in the season.

He wanted to play … the Raiders wanted to make sure he was healthy enough for trade bait. Crosby knew why he was benched and wasn’t happy. He also celebrated the trade to Baltimore because he went from a team with the prospects of a fly about to get hit with a swatter to a Ravens team that has been among the top teams in the league for years.

Then, in a move more surprising than the trade, the Ravens doctors, who have been characterized in follow-up reports as both “cautious” and "conservative," didn’t physically pass Crosby Baltimore nixed the trade and the Ravens returned Crosby to the Raiders.

Bad move?

I have a firsthand experience where not following a doctor's report cost a team big time. In 1973, the Oakland Raiders were among the best teams in football. Still, losses the prior years in the playoffs had opened the doors for a pair of American Football League teams that were a notch better than Al Davis’s squad, the Miami Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers.

Davis was most concerned about the Steelers and their prospects for them dominating football for years to come. Even before they had played in their first Super Bowl, Davis drooled over their defensive prowess led by a front line anchored by Joe Greene, L.C. Greenwood, Dwight White and Ernie Holmes. The Raiders strength in those days was their offensive line, but Davis was looking for a more intimidating defense.

With that in mind, and learning that the Baltimore Colts were shopping Bubba Smith, the prospect of adding a player considered one of the best intimidators in the game prompted Davis to enter the negotiations. He was willing to trade a key part of their offensive juggernaut to put his defense up to the standards of the emerging Steelers.

Bubba Smith was a great athlete that combined both size and strength. In college, at Michigan State, the chants from the stands were “Kill, Bubba, Kill.” He was a force in college football that had Michigan State vie for the National Championship while pinned on his dominance over opposing offenses. He was the first player taken in the 1967 draft and played in two Super Bowls in his first five professional seasons.

Then, in a 1972 exhibition game in Tampa, years before the Buccaneers were even an NFL franchise, the Colts played an exhibition game in Florida and an inexperienced sideline crew manning the yard markers found Smith crashing into one and injuring his knee. By today’s standards the surgery would be completed and the player would in all likelihood return to his former prowess.

But Smith had two things against him. First, he did not benefit from the medical advances we have enjoyed in ensuing years, and his athletic ability came so naturally to him that having to overcome an obstacle was not in his wheelhouse. He was not the same player after the surgery, and the Colts were willing to part ways with the one-time great player. In Davis, they found a suitor that was looking to enhance the intimidation factor for his beloved Raiders and figured Smith would return to his glory years in Silver and Black.

In fact, the Raiders orthopedic specialist, Dr. Robert Rosenfeld, questioned whether Smith would regain his former stature on the field. But Davis discarded the doctor's concerns, swayed with visions of the Kill, Bubba, Kill glory. To bring Smith to the Raiders, Davis sent their star tightend in the prime of his career, Raymond Chester, to the Colts.

Smith never regained his dominance, hadn’t since the 1972 injury, and he played a couple undistinguished seasons in Oakland before ending his career with the Houston Oilers. As for the Raiders, the trading of Chester weakened their once prolific offense that quarterback Daryle Lamonica triggered with a receiving corps that lost one of their major cogs with the departure of Chester.

In fact, Lamonica never completed another touchdown pass for the Raiders after Chester was removed from his one-time high-scoring offense. After three games without getting the Raiders offense into the endzone to open the 1973 season, he was replaced by Ken Stabler. It wasn’t until the Raiders found another outstanding tight end with the drafting of Dave Casper out of Notre Dame that they finally won their first Super Bowl to complete the 1976 season. That was a year in which Smith was playing out his once-promising NFL career in Houston.

Davis was hoping Smith could return from an injury that sidelined his effectiveness. The Ravens had the same concern about Crosby this year. One held out hope and the trade was a bad one for Oakland, the Ravens recovered their first-round draft choices, and we can only see whether their cautious path to return Crosby to sender was the right one.