Ah, the rookie wall. It may be an imaginary wall, but it’s a real thing. It’s the wall a lot of rookies hit right around the 13th game of the season when their bodies are used to the season being over because college seasons usually go about 12 games, but in the NFL, they have (at least) four games left.
Not every rookie hits it. Some can play through it. Some blast through it and say ‘what wall?’ Raiders fourth round defensive end Maxx Crosby is on such rookie.
“Crosby’s still churning away,” Gruden said recently, bucking the rookie wall theory. “We’re proud of our rookies. It’s a tough, tough task to walk in here and get this much play time in your first year, but there might be something to that. I don’t know. I don’t believe in all that stuff.”
Crosby then went out and blew up plays against the Chargers just as he has all season long, helping the Raiders pull out of a four-game slide.
Crosby leads the Raiders in basically every pressure category including sacks (8.5), QB hits (13), tackles for loss (15), and forced fumbles (3). Four of those sacks came in the team’s tenth game of the season. He’s also had at least one tackle for loss in each of the past seven games.
It should come as no surprise that Crosby isn’t slowing down. He was the harding working player in training camp and he’s got energy for days. Or in this case, months.
With one game remaining in the season, the Raiders have 30.0 sacks on the season. That’s good for 26th in the league, which may not seem like anything to sing about, but the last season the Raiders were dead last in the league by a considerable margin. They had 13.0 total sacks and of the defensive ends still on the team, they had a combined ONE (Arden Key).
This season the defensive ends on the team have a combined 24.0 sacks. Crosby’s 8.5 sacks leads the way, then behind him is veteran Benson Mayowa (7.0), then rookie top pick Clelin Ferrell (4.5), and finally Arden Key (2.0) and newcomer Dion Jordan (2.0).