Maxx Crosby is back with the team this week after leaving the facility on Thursday, and while some have painted Crosby’s frustration with the Raiders as a negative situation, the eventual solution should be a positive development for everyone involved.
Yahoo and FOX Sports host Jason Fitz was on the Raiders’ flagship radio station on Tuesday, and he explained why he expects Crosby and the team to benefit from whatever decisions are reached in the next few months.
“I think [if] everything breaks right… you’re looking at a three-year rebuild, in my opinion. By the time we get to the end of three years, Maxx is going to be on the wrong side of all of this,” Fitz said on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate.
“So frankly, if he wants to go play somewhere else so he can win, he’s earned the right to go play somewhere else so he can win. And the Raiders will get a big haul in return, which they could use for a long-term rebuild. If he doesn’t want to go someplace else, if he wants to see this thing through, then you get the culture leader you need in the locker room.”
“He can teach and he can be such an important part of playing with energy and playing with efforts and teaching guys how to be a pro,” Fitz continued. “[If] he sticks around and he sees this through, hopefully, in year three when this is a much better football team, Maxx is still putting up great numbers and it’s a great return.”
“Weirdly, there is no loss in this because I don’t believe that the Raiders have any chance next year of being a playoff team. So if they don’t, then don’t hold Maxx prisoner. If he wants to go somewhere else, let him go somewhere else. If he doesn’t want to go somewhere else, let him be the culture setter in the locker room.”
To this point, any talk of a trade involving Crosby is purely speculation but reading the tea leaves going back to last year, there is reason to believe Crosby might finally consider a change of scenery.
As for Crosby’s reaction to being sidelined last week, one of the league’s top insiders doesn’t think the All-Pro pass rusher’s response was inappropriate.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter says no one at fault in the Crosby situation…
“I think both sides can be right,” Schefter said on the Pat McAfee Show on Monday.
“I think where the Raiders are coming from is they had scans done on his knee on Tuesday. Doctors felt like his condition had worsened. He needs knee surgery at some point this off season. They’re in a spot where, why would they expose him? He is a football player and wants to keep playing.”
“Of course, his drive, his energy, his attitude is what has made him so successful. So he wants to keep playing. And from their standpoint, they don’t want to risk putting him out there and making it worse, especially when they’re competing for the number one pick. There’s no reason for them to do that. So he may not like it, but it sounded like what they were doing was the right thing. And again, I think both sides in this particular case are right.”
x: @raidersbeat
I think the raiders need to get rid of Pete Carroll, his son and the coaches need new help with DBS and linebacker positions offensive line is too heavy. They’re too fat and slow to move. They need to be 300 lb or or 285 the 290 so the faster agile and able to move and block younger coach is younger mantel and
Look I am sick and tired of people saying “rebuild.” There needs to be an alternate word like “reset.” Every year we see teams that had bad records and coaches are fired and draft occurs, trades are made, signings, etc… at least one or more (sometimes several) immediately (and sometimes after a year) produce. For anyone to say (as this article includes) that a rebuild needs to occur so the Raiders wont be good for 3 years is ridiculous.
You can say they wont be good for years due to our dysfunctional organization but dont portray it is because of what you call a rebuild (as they do not exist any longer teams can be go from bad to good overnight).
We need the right staff in place n to see it through. If we would have kept Pierce or back further n kept Del Rio we would be in different situation. Look at how coaching changed things like when Rich Bassaci came in for Gruden n saved the season or when Pierce took over for McDaniels n turned that team around. Of course when Del Rio came in n changed our team atmosphere.
A team can win by excelling in certain categories like the 2016 team did. That team had many holes on both sides of the ball. However, they had a solid offensive line (not giving up sacks n allowing pressure as well as run blocking), Carr was on point coming through in the clutch in many games, special teams was good, and we did great in turnover differential creating high number of turnovers.
All of this while having a lot of penalties n having too high a number of dropped passes.
This is why it is not as difficult as people may think to turn things around but it starts with the right personnel making decisions n because we have the worst owner in the history of the league as long as he decides what goes on with our team we may be doomed for many more years. Bringing Gruden back will not do it as he had 2 chances n he did not succeed either time.
And for those that disagree go do some research or learn football because beside him being a behind doors racist, homo basher, n other hate traits, he is a egomaniac who thinks he is smarter than he really is buying into all the unsupported hype n talk about his prowess. He has never groomed a QB but portrayed himself as someone who had n could. He boasted that he would win immediately on 2nd stint bragging about how the league would be forced to play against his old school football. He intentionally lied to everyone saying Mack was 1 of the reasons he came back but then never contacted him n purposely waited until Aaron Donald signed his new contract to set market for Gruden to trade away Mack (let us not forget that this einstein coach received nothing immediately while Mack dominated n Bears almost won title) to a team Gruden believed would produce a better pick in return for Raiders which ended up being horrible mistake (as were all decisions Gruden made).
And please do not bring up anything from his 1st go around as Al Davis made all decisions for that team that was put together n if you look at those four years Gruden did not do that good with a very talented roster.
Look, I get the frustration with how things ended the second time around, but claiming Gruden wasn’t successful in his first stint is actually factually incorrect. To say he “didn’t do that good” with a talented roster completely ignores the reality of where that franchise was before he showed up and the absolute war he had to wage against Al Davis’s philosophy to make them winners. Al may have gone out and signed the pieces, but…
The idea that Al Davis just handed him a perfect team and he coasted is a total myth. If anything, the roster Gruden built was the total antithesis of what Al Davis actually wanted. Al lived and died by the “Vertical Game”—he wanted “Mad Bomber” types like Daryl Lamonica who would just chuck it deep every other play. He absolutely loathed the West Coast Offense.
Yet, Gruden went out and got Rich Gannon—a guy Al Davis notoriously didn’t want because he didn’t have the “cannon” arm Davis obsessed over. Gruden forced a short-to-intermediate, high-percentage passing game down the organization’s throat because it worked, even while Al was reportedly calling down to the sidelines demanding they throw it deep.
Before Gruden took over in ’98, the Raiders were a mess. They’d gone 4-12 the year before and hadn’t won a division title in fifteen years. Gruden turned them around immediately, going 8-8 twice and then exploding for 12-4 and 10-6 seasons with back-to-back AFC West titles. He took a sinking ship and turned it into a powerhouse that Al then traded away because his ego couldn’t handle a coach winning “the wrong way.”
Now, you aren’t wrong that Gruden could be frustratingly conservative. His “play-not-to-lose” style in the postseason is a fair critique, and those early 2000s teams absolutely should have won at least one Super Bowl. But to act like he was just a passenger on Al Davis’s bus is revisionist history. He didn’t just inherit a winner; he fought the owner’s outdated ideas to create one.