Dallas-area verbal scuffle and mall encounter (pre-feud anecdote)

In a retrospective interview Talib said that the personal element of the Crabtree relationship predated the 2017 chain incidents and began with verbal exchanges during games and a brief off-field brush in the Dallas area. Talib recounted that the two had trash-talked in earlier matchups and that a chance meeting at a Dallas mall did not escalate — "there was no smoke," according to Talib's memory of the encounter — but it solidified his awareness of Crabtree as a player he wanted to confront on the field later. This anecdote is Talib's own retrospective account and is reported from his 2021 interview appearance; it is not corroborated by contemporaneous reporting from the mid-2010s [18].

The Dallas/mall anecdote matters because it shows the feud had a personal dimension beyond routine in-game trash talk: Talib frames the later chain-snatch as part of an ongoing, individual grievance rather than an isolated in-game reaction. While the mall meeting did not produce a physical altercation, Talib's recounting ties together earlier verbal antagonism and later on-field confrontations, helping explain why the chain incidents carried greater personal weight for both players [18].

According to Talib's later account the Dallas-area encounter did not produce immediate consequences, but it contributed to a personal narrative that made interactions between Talib and Crabtree on the field more charged. The mall meeting itself did not generate news coverage at the time; it is significant primarily as a retrospective detail Talib provided when summarizing how the personal feud developed [18].