Maxx Crosby compares Raiders to championship team

While Maxx Crosby continues to light up the NFL as one of the premier defensive ends in the league, he wants that personal success to translate to the Las Vegas Raiders as a team more than anything.

Despite making four straight Pro Bowls, Crosby has only seen one winning season since joining the Raiders in 2019. By the same token, he has seen five different head coaches in that same timeframe. That frustration could have easily pushed Crosby to want out of Las Vegas, but signing a three-year, $106.5 million extension in March was proof of how committed the star is to turning the team that drafted him around.

In order for the Raiders to get back to their former glory, Crosby wants them to emulate the formula of a recent champion in another sport.

The Raiders have a path they can follow to make their way back to the NFL’s elite.

At last week’s annual Sack Summit, Crosby compared the situation of the Raiders to the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder, who recently defeated the Indiana Pacers in seven games to win the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

“Anytime you go out there, you want to be in a position to win,” Crosby said, per The Athletic’s Tashan Reed. “Individual success and things like that are awesome, but it’s not why you play the game. You play to win. We just saw it in the NBA: OKC, just a couple years ago, was one of the worst teams in the league. But they had a lot of young guys, they trusted the process, they developed and now they’re the world champions.

“We’re trying to win. I want to win so badly. I put everything into it. I want everybody else to think like that. And that’s been my goal, just bringing as many guys along as I possibly can.”

Before their championship run, the Thunder were not far removed from being the worst team in the NBA.

Winning a combined 46 games between 2020-21, Thunder general manager Sam Presti began a bold long-term strategy that saw the team gain young talent and a slew of future draft picks. The Thunder soon began to turn things around, and Crosby is hoping for a similar result with the Raiders. If additions such as head coach Pete Carroll and quarterback Geno Smith are any indication, a quick turnaround is exactly what the Raiders are aiming for.

Crosby signed with the Raiders to see those ambitions come to reality.