Pete Carroll has addressed the ongoing drama between Maxx Crosby and the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Raiders head coach told reporters Friday that he had spoken with a frustrated Crosby as the latter left the Raiders’ facility. Crosby had just been informed that the team was shutting him down for the remainder of the season due to a lingering knee injury.
“We talked when he was getting out of here,” Carroll said, via Sean Zittel of Vegas Sports Today. “He’s been fighting it so hard for so long. He’s been fighting this thing for nine weeks, whenever Kansas City was. Each week, he has done everything you could possibly imagine a guy could do to play, and he’s been able to.
“He said, ‘I’d like to get out of here,’ so I said, ‘Yeah, get out of here,’ so he took off. “…It was exactly like you would think he would do, and he should do, and I agree with him a thousand percent on how he responded.”
Carroll explained that the team had a final evaluation of Crosby’s knee injury to start the week, which showed that the injury was too severe to play through.
With the Raiders sitting on a 2-13 record, there really isn’t much reason to risk Crosby aggravating the injury. If anything, Las Vegas would benefit from Crosby sitting out the team’s Week 17 matchup against the New York Giants, because whichever team loses gets a stranglehold on potentially getting the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Crosby made it clear earlier this week that he does not care at all about the Raiders’ draft slot. The man just wants to play.
