The Las Vegas Raiders spent the early hours of the legal tampering window quietly on the sidelines, but they eventually made their move. The front office agreed to sign former Indianapolis Colts defensive end Kwity Paye, according to NFL insider Jordan Schultz, adding a seasoned edge rusher to a defense that had just watched Maxx Crosby walk out the door via trade just days earlier.
It is not a like-for-like replacement — replacing Crosby is essentially impossible — but the signing reveals something interesting about how this particular front office thinks and who it trusts. The thread connecting Las Vegas to Paye runs straight through the University of Michigan.
The Wolverines brotherhood at work
General manager John Spytek and minority owner Tom Brady are both University of Michigan alumni, and the affinity that former Wolverines tend to carry for one another is well documented in NFL circles. Paye is also a Michigan man, having played his college football in Ann Arbor under Jim Harbaugh before being drafted by the Colts. When a front office has a cultural leaning toward a particular program, and a player from that program hits the open market, the fit tends to get explored quickly. That appears to be exactly what happened here.
The Michigan connections extend further still. Harbaugh employed current Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald for a season in Ann Arbor. John Harbaugh also had Macdonald on staff in Baltimore for several years before he departed for Seattle. New Raiders defensive coordinator Rob Leonard and offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak both have ties to Macdonald’s coaching tree — meaning the network of relationships surrounding Paye’s signing is denser than a simple free agency transaction would suggest.
What Paye brings to Las Vegas
Paye turns 28 in November and arrives with five years of NFL experience accumulated entirely with the Colts. He is not an elite pass rusher by any conventional measure, but he is a dependable, experienced edge defender who gives Leonard a known quantity to work with in his first season as a defensive coordinator at this level. After trading Crosby to the Baltimore Ravens for two first-round picks, the Raiders signaled clearly that they are in rebuild mode. In that context, signing a reliable veteran on a manageable deal makes considerably more sense than chasing a big-ticket replacement.
Paye’s best individual season came in 2022 when he recorded seven sacks, and he has shown enough against the run to project as a starter rather than a rotational piece. His ceiling may be limited, but his floor is high enough to be useful for a team that is likely prioritizing draft capital and long-term flexibility over immediate competitiveness.
The bigger picture in Las Vegas
The Raiders’ offseason trajectory became clear the moment they agreed to send Crosby to Baltimore. Las Vegas collected premium picks, cleared meaningful cap space and began the process of resetting the roster around a younger core. Paye fits that model — a player in his late twenties with starting experience who does not require a massive financial commitment and can contribute while the rebuild takes shape around him.
Whether the Michigan connection was the deciding factor or simply a comfortable tie-breaker in an otherwise competitive market is difficult to know from the outside. But in a league where relationships and trust form the foundation of most roster decisions, the fact that Spytek, Brady and Paye all share a bond with Ann Arbor is almost certainly not a coincidence. Front offices tend to sign players they believe in, and they tend to believe most readily in players they already know.
Source: Sports Illustrated / Levi Dombro