Maxx Crosby is universally known to be one of the hardest workers in the NFL. His drive to be great is in a category alongside some of the greatest to play professional sports.
Recently, Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter said he has only over seen three athletes work as hard as Crosby, and Hondo brought one of Crosby’s former coaches on his podcast this week to talk about the former Eastern Michigan star.
Crosby had only one scholarship offer out of high school and at times in his career his unique athleticism has been overlooked because of his unrivaled work ethic. One coach that didn’t overlook Crosby’s natural talent, though, was a former Eastern Michigan assistant coach Herb Haygood.
“I think [what caught my eye] was his first step, which you are seeing in the NFL right now,” Haygood said of Crosby on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast. “Even though he didn’t have the weight, he had that first step which you can’t, [as] we say, you can’t coach that… You either have it or you don’t.”
“He has that first step that no one can coach,” Haygood continued. “This is what people [didn’t] realize, because when you go back and watch his Hudl from high school, he doesn’t look like a great player. We recruited Maxx because of his best friend, who was bigger, but didn’t have that first step that Maxx had. And then once we got [Maxx] in, we were like ‘Oh, shoot. It’s a no-brainer here.”
The good news for the Raiders is that Crosby has that God-given first step. The bad news for the Raiders is that last year’s first-round pick hasn’t been able to show similar explosion at the line scrimmage.
For all the talk about Tyree Wilson’s unique athletic ability, which he certainly has, the knock on him in his rookie year was that he didn’t have the burst at the line of scrimmage that many elite pass rushers possess.
Maybe this will be the year for Wilson, but it’s noteworthy that Crosby’s former coach was able to see an explosive first step from Crosby all the way back in his first year in college.
Hopefully, for the Raiders sake, Tyree is simply a late bloomer.
