Las Vegas Raiders fans know good and well that superstar defensive end Maxx Crosby will play through anything. He'd run through a field of glass shards in bare feet with two broken legs while on fire if he were allowed to and if an opposing player was on the other side.
That is why it was so important for the Raiders to not only protect their $106.5 million investment by putting him in bubble wrap for the remainder of the 2025 NFL season, but to protect this warrior from himself. It's honorable, but Crosby doesn't need the extra bumps and bruises in meaningless games.
Without speculating about all of the drama or the conflicting reports about his future in Las Vegas, I want to focus on his injury timeline. Specifically, when exactly he sustained his knee injury that ultimately ended his campaign prematurely.
Maxx Crosby's self-reported injury timeline doesn't mesh with Pete Carroll's
On Sunday, just hours before the Raiders took on the New York Giants in Week 17, Fox Sports' Jay Glazer reported that Crosby told him that he was first injured way back in Week 3. That piece of information fell under the radar, however, as Glazer also said that Crosby told him he was unhappy.
Well, the timeline of Crosby's injury is back at the forefront now, as he spoke on Tuesday's episode of Let's Go! on SiriusXM with Jim Gray. Crosby confirmed that he needed surgery on his knee, but he also corroborated Glazer's report about him sustaining the injury in Week 3.
"Fortunately, this surgery that I got coming up, I knew I tore my meniscus in Week 3. So, it was a thing that was going on for a long time, and I played through it," Crosby said. " I knew what it was, and it's not gonna be nearly as long as my ankle. The ankle, I had to get a full tight rope, and I tore my ligaments and all that. So that's a whole different deal. But yeah, I'm excited to get it trimmed up and get right back to work and get ready for 2026.”
Fans know better than to doubt the fact that Crosby is playing through a handful of ailments at any given time, but this just doesn't line up with what Raider Nation has been fed. First, Crosby was a one-man wrecking crew the following week against the Chicago Bears; perhaps his best game all year.
Second, and more importantly, Pete Carroll has been telling reporters since they shut Crosby down that he sustained the injury in Week 7 against the Kansas City Chiefs. Carroll actually went into detail about seeing Crosby struggle to get onto the bus following the game after the initial injury.
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I took the liberty of looking back through the Raiders' weekly injury reports, and surprisingly, Crosby was not listed with a knee injury ahead of Week 4, just after he said he suffered the torn meniscus. In fact, there is no mention of his knee injury until the team's second practice leading up to Week 5.
He was listed with a knee injury again in Week 6, but not in Week 7. Instead, he popped up with a back injury and was categorized as a limited participant only on the Friday leading up to the aforementioned Chiefs game in Week 7, which was just before the bye.
Coming out of the bye and ahead of their Week 9 game, Crosby was once again listed with a back injury, but not a knee injury. He was off the injury report altogether in Weeks 10 and 11 before his knee injury was accounted for every week from Week 12 to Week 16.
The only time the injury report strayed was in Week 15 when Crosby also had a shoulder injury, and then in Week 17, when he was shut down. With this information, it makes it clear that either Crosby was hiding something from the team or the team was hiding something from the league.
Nothing about this timeline makes any sense, but in the end, all that matters is that Crosby is now going through the proper channels to get himself healthy, and the Raiders are holding him accountable in doing so. It's best for his body and his future.
However, I can't help but feel like there is something weird going on with all of this, as Carroll really went out of his way to clarify that Crosby has been hurt since Week 7, but Crosby insists that it has been since Week 3.
Is Pete Carroll really that oblivious to things that his superstar defensive end could pull the wool over his eyes for four weeks about a torn meniscus? I sure hope not, and I doubt it. This was probably just Crosby being a superhero and toughing it out, but not wanting to tip his hand to his opponent.
Whether Carroll and the team knew about that or not is merely speculation, but it's difficult to sift back through these injury reports and pinpoint exactly when Crosby's injury was deemed or discovered to be so bad that the team determined that he couldn't play.