There are two ways to look at this blog. The first is a big ol' bummer: Maxx Crosby's tumbling down arbitrary player rankings. It'd be very easy to let the panic take over, start wondering if Crosby's best days are behind him, and worry about how the Raiders' best player is an edge rusher coming off a bunch of injuries and his least productive season in years (I wonder if those are related?).
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That'd be one way to look at it. The other way would be to finally accept into your heart that Brock Bowers has arrived. I don't know who's still waiting to do that, but if you are one of the few, now's your time; CBS Sports dropped a new Top 100 players list, and on it, Brock Bowers is ranked higher than Maxx Crosby. It's a slightly-new era in Las Vegas.
Brock Bowers ranks higher than Maxx Crosby in CBS Sports' Top 100 NFL players
"22. Brock Bowers: Bowers led all tight ends in catches last season as a rookie with 112, showing off the ability to dominate his matchups. He might not catch as many passes this year, but I think he's now the best tight end in the league. (Last season: NR)
28. Maxx Crosby: Crosby missed five games because of injury and had only 7.5 sacks last season after getting 14.5 the year before, but he remains a force on the edge when he's on the field. A healthy Crosby is a Defensive Player of the Year candidate. (Last season: No. 11)"
28 for Crosby, coming off the season he had, feels fine. I don't have any beef with that. Like the blurb mentions, he's still a Defensive Player of the Year candidate. What I'm more surprised at is that Bowers is already considered a fringe Top-20 player. Say it out loud a few times – Brock Bowers is a Top 20 NFL player. The Raiders have a Top-20 player on offense. What a world we're living in.
As Top 100 player lists start showing up more and more over the next few weeks, it'll be interesting to see how many outlets agree with CBS Sports. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll get an actual Top-20 finish for Bowers somewhere. Then again, with *two* Raiders in the Top-30, I don't want to get greedy.