Maxx Crosby and Kirk Cousins seem to be back to business-as-usual following a practice scuffle on Friday, but ESPN host Kevin Clark said this week he doesn’t think the incident was a typical practice squabble.
According to Clark, and NBC host Mike Florio made a similar observation, the fact that the Raiders held Cousins and Crosby out of Saturday’s practice suggests there was a serious element to the situation.
“It wasn’t anything until they held them out of practice for a day, which seems to suggest that there was a level of seriousness to it,” Clark said on ESPN’s First Take.
“Maybe that rises above a normal training camp fight. Rex Ryan used to have Rob Turner start training camp fights if things were going a little boring or a little quiet. Training camp fights are a part of the process here. The fact that Klint Kubiak wanted to say, ‘Hey, we don’t do that here,’ Suggests that something was a little bit amiss.”
Florio wonders if the Raiders jumped on an opportunity to give Fernando Mendoza first-team reps
He can be a bit of a conspiracy theorist, but Florio pointed out on PFT Live this week that the opportunity to give Mendoza a day of first-team reps might have been too much for the Raiders’ coaching staff to pass up.
“Wouldn’t it be a shame if Klint Kubiak, the head coach, wasn’t secretly hoping for an opportunity to give Fernando Mendoza a day with the starters?” Florio said on Monday.
To Florio’s point, there was never a full-blown fight between Crosby and Cousins. For no punches to have been thrown, a day away from practice was a relatively steep price to pay.
In the end, Mendoza got a day with the first-team offense and Crosby got a day off to rest his knee.
Clark could be right that there is something more between Crosby and Cousins, but a day off for both players didn’t hurt the team in a big way… and no one is complaining about Mendoza getting a few more reps.
x: @raidersbeat