As much weight as Maxx Crosby tries to put on his shoulders, there’s literally only so much he can do to try and put this team on his back. Sometimes no amount of effort is enough. Sunday against the Bears was one of those games.
Crosby made history as the only player in NFL history to have three pass breakups, 3 tackles for loss, and an interception in one half of football.
His first tackle for loss and pass breakup stopped the Bears for their second straight three-and-out to begin the game. And it held the Bears to a field goal off their first takeaway. His second pass breakup was off their second takeaway, and this time he picked it off to keep the Bears from scoring at all and allowed the Raiders to take the lead despite already having logged two turnovers in the game.
One Crosby’s biggest plays, he didn’t even get proper credit for because Caleb Williams had the ball come out just before he hit him, so all he got credit for was the tackle for loss on what probably should have been a strip sack. But the result was the same. But on the ensuing possession, Geno Smith threw his second interception to put the Bears in scoring position again.
Once again, however, Crosby had a tackle for loss to limit the damage to a field goal and retaining a one-point lead. It was a 64-yard touchdown run by Ashton Jeanty that would get the Raiders on the board for a second time, but it was Crosby’s efforts that kept the Bears out of the end zone in the first half.
The fourth turnover of the day for the Raiders finally lost them the lead. Geno Smith threw a pick on the first play of the third quarter and the Bears would capitalize with a touchdown drive. From there, the Raiders were always in the position of having to have an answer for the Bears’ scores. They were able to do it right up until the end when the game-winning field goal attempt was blocked. A supremely frustrating end to what was a herculean effort by Maxx Crosby to weather three first half turnovers to retain the lead.
“My game is I want to go out there and wreck everything. I feel like I do that at a very, very high level,” said Crosby. “It wasn’t enough today, I gotta do more and we got to do more as a team to win.”
It’s hard to imagine him doing more than he does already. I think he knows that, but he can’t exactly call out anyone else. All he can do is say he needs to do more.
The Pro Bowl EDGE has felt this sting a lot over the years. He’s been playing at an elite level since his rookie season in 2019 and has just one winning season to show for it.
“It frickin hurts, it sucks, I hate losing,” said a frustrated Crosby after the game.
“We’ve just got to find ways to win games. That’s what I’ve been trying to do for seven years. That’s all that matters to me. That’s all we gotta do. We got to make it easier on ourselves, we got to execute when it matters most and just close out games. That’s it.”
Losing always sucks. Losing their third straight sucks even more. Losing despite the game that Crosby had along with Ashton Jeanty’s breakout performance has to suck in a way that supersedes all of that. It’s like plugging two big holes in a leaky dam only to have three more open up.
I honestly can’t imagine the level of frustration these guys must be feeling right now.