Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
A motivated Maxx Crosby is a force to be reckoned with.
Already one of the premier pass rushers in the league, Crosby has redoubled his efforts to be a disruptive force in the season ahead.
“It’s been a hell of an offseason,” Crosby told ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez, following a 2023 campaign that saw him post a career-high 14.5 sacks despite battling through thumb and knee injuries that required surgeries following the season.
Now, Crosby looks to elevate his game in 2024 which is bad news for quarterbacks across the NFL.
“I was damn near limited every single day, the whole season in practice, and things like that,” Crosby said. And I had to learn to make an adjustment because I can’t just go out there and run my knee into the ground. I had to be ready for Sunday.
“It made me take a step back so I could take three steps forward, and I feel like that’s what this offseason was all about — my one goal is to be the best in the world, pound for pound, and I talk about it, I’m about it, I live it every single day and whatever street I’ve got to travel to get to where I want to go, I’m going to do that. So I’m exhausting every single resource I possibly have to have the best season of my career.”
If last season is an indication of what Crosby is capable of when playing through pain, how impactful will he be in 2024 after an offseason of intense training and rehab to get back to an elite level?
“He defeats every possible block before it happens,” NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger told me recently. “He has rare conditioning reflexes and instincts.”
Crosby has 52 career sacks through his first five seasons, logged 94 quarterback pressures last season, but keeps striving for more.
“You talk about fight camps [lasting] maybe three months, four months; I do it 365 [days],” Crosby said, via ESPN. “So that’s why I feel like, at the end of the day, my consistency is what separates myself and it will only keep getting me better because I don’t leave any stone unturned.”
