Week 1 went about as bad as it could've gone for the Las Vegas Raiders. They lost 22-10 to the rival Los Angeles Chargers and the two teams got into a big brawl in the fourth quarter. While Jack Jones and Joshua Palmer were the only two players to get ejected, there were plenty of players who participated.
Star defensive end Maxx Crosby was at the center of the brawl as he's not one to let his teammates do any fighting without him. He believes that the history between the Raiders and Chargers helped escalate things.
"There's definitely history, everybody knows that. We don't like the Chargers, they don't like us, that's no secret," Crosby said on the Let's Go! podcast.
Though Crosby is definitely one of the NFL's tough guys and would never back away from a fight, he'd prefer for the Raiders to avoid those situations going forward.
"That's not our identity. For us, Raiders, we have a history, the Black Hole and what we're all about," Crosby said. "... You play with emotion, but you don't carry emotion all day, you don't let that build up when something goes wrong and then we lose, or we're about to lose and then all of a sudden you just lose your mind and start fighting. That's now how we want to play. We want to be physically imposing and dominate and win. That's not what we represent."
The Raiders definitely have had more swagger under head coach Antonio Pierce so it's not a surprise that the whole team would have each other's back. However, fights can lead to suspensions and the Raiders don't have the roster depth to afford that.
If a player like Crosby had to miss any time at all, that would be a nightmare for the Raiders. It looked like Jones could've possibly been suspended, which would've been a disaster. It's OK for the Raiders to stick up for each other but they have to be smarter going forward.