Raiders’ Maxx Crosby ‘Got Into It’ With Teammate After Absurd Penalty

Cornerback Marcus Peters of the Raiders has only been with the team for one season, but as a fellow veteran and leader, he has done some bonding with defensive lineman Maxx Crosby, the anchor of the Raiders defense.

So when Packers offensive lineman Zach Tom committed a clear flop after a phantom push from Crosby late in the first quarter of Monday’s Raiders win over Green Bay, resulting in an absurd unnecessary roughness call on Crosby, the Raiders star was going to lose his temper. But Peters, he said, was there to chill him out.

If there has been some outside doubting of the Raiders as a defense, Crosby noted after the game, it has not come from the Raiders themselves. And the situation with Peters was an indication that the team has excellent communication working.

“The guys communicate so well. We have our moments on the sideline. We’ll f***ing get into it, argue,” Crosby said in the locker room after the game. “Me and Marcus got into it. He was telling me to chill out because I got the penalty and I was mad. But he was right. He was on the dude, whatever that was, flopped, whatever. But we are playing together and we got guys that are close and that’s what it is all about really.”

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Raiders D Is No ‘Fluke’: Maxx Crosby

The Raiders, after the win on Monday, have now given up 114 points on the season, but 38 of those points came in the one blowout loss the team has had, in Week 2 in Buffalo. They yielded just one touchdown to the Packers, coming off a second half against the Chargers in which the Raiders allowed no scoring and gave the offense a chance to attempt a comeback, failed though it was.

And even in the first half in Los Angeles, two of the three touchdowns the Raiders allowed came on a short field after a fumble by the offense—one Chargers drive started on the Raiders’ 35-yard line and the other on the 36-yard line.

For Crosby, that’s a sign that the improvement in the Raiders defense is not a fluke.

“You can see the defense, everyone was saying it’s a fluke that we held the Chargers to nothing in the second half and then we played better this week,” Crosby said. “For us, it’s just about being solution-based. And getting better every single time we go on the field. It’s not about, you know, the panic, the stress, all that. It’s about, all right, we’re gonna do this together, we’re the only guys we’ve got and that’s what we’re banking on. Trusting each other, trusting the coaching staff and just continuing to improve.”

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Josh McDaniels Praises Crosby’s ‘Consistency’

Certainly, from the point of view of the coaches, the Raiders defense has not been the area that needs addressing. They’ve only continued to get better as several new pieces begin to come together. But they know that it starts with Crosby, who had four tackles for a loss on the night.

“Consistency. Maxx does it every day with his effort, his work, how much he cares about every little detail relative to the football team, his teammates, his body, practice,” head coach Josh McDaniels said on Monday. “And then he gives it everything he has, every single time he’s out there. And he never comes off the field, as you know. So, tremendous leadership. I thought we had tremendous leadership from our captains all week long.”

And if Crosby is right about the defense’s last six quarters not being a fluke, they should be in good position to keep things going on Sunday against New England—a team that has scored three points in its last two games, and has posted just one touchdown in three games.

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