Raiders: Rookie report card three-quarters into the 2019 season
By Nico Di Fede
Maxx Crosby, DE
Despite being a rookie fourth-rounder, Maxx Crosby has been the star of this defense, especially in these past four games.
Crosby had only half a sack as well as a tackle for loss and three QB hits against the Chargers, but with an impressive nine pressures. He followed that up with the best performance of any defender on the Raiders throughout the whole season against the Bengals.
In that game, he put up four sacks, three tackles for a loss, and five QB hits. This gave him 6.5 sacks on the season which was the most a Raiders rookie has ever had through their first 10 games.
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The four sacks were also the second most a rookie has ever gotten in a single game in NFL history.
Crosby followed up his four sack performance with a decent but quiet outing against the Jets, bringing Sam Darnold down once for a single sack to go along with two tackles for a loss.
Against the Chiefs, Crosby was quiet rushing the passer, recording no sacks or QB hits, but he was solid against the run which is an area he has improved on heavily as the season goes on.
With this being his best four-game stretch, you should expect Crosby to continue to shine as he will only be getting better considering the fact that he has only started six games.
With 7.5 sacks on the season, Crosby is currently third among rookies, only behind Josh Allen and Nick Bosa of the Jacksonville Jaguars and San Francisco 49ers respectively.
It is very possible Crosby will finish the season with 10.0 or more sacks which would be four less than Jevon Kearse‘s single-season record for a rookie with 14.5.
Crosby is already in the Raiders record books and will look to finish the season as maybe the best rookie edge rusher the Raiders have ever had numbers-wise.