Jon Gruden Threatened To Cut Maxx Crosby For Being Too Good At His Job

Maxx Crosby is the undisputed star of the Raiders’ defense thanks to his skills on the edge, but he apparently managed to rub Jon Gruden the wrong way during his early days with the team by being a bit too good at his job.

It’s kind of hard to imagine the Las Vegas Raiders knew what they were getting when they selected Maxx Crosby with the 106th overall pick in the draft in 2019. He’d certainly proved he could hold his own during his time at Eastern Michigan, but he really came into his own once he got the chance to do his thing in the NFL.

Crosby posted a career-high 14.5 sacks during the most recent campaign while earning his third consecutive Pro Bowl selection and adding All-Pro first-team honors to his résumé. He’s an absolute nightmare for every offensive line that’s tasked with stopping him, but his tenacity almost came back to haunt him when he first joined the Raiders.

Jon Gruden was still the head coach in Las Vegas when Crosby became a member of the franchise, and during a recent appearance on Pardon My Take, the DE acknowledged he did not make the best first impression thanks to his tendency to do the job he was paid to do to the detriment of the team’s offense.

Here’s what he had to say:

“He literally threatened to cut me in the middle of the field in my first training camp…He would get so mad about batting balls. He refused to let us bat the ball. 

I would tell him, ‘Why the f— are we practicing not to bat the ball? In the game they’re going to be doing the same s—, so what’s the point?’ But he’s an offensive guy so he wants practice to move a certain way. 

It was the second week of training camp. I swat a ball down and I’m f—ing hype; I’m celebrating and he’s looking at me all irritated. Happens again, and then it happens at the end of practice.

I swat it for the third time and he’s like, ‘Stop swatting the f—ing ball down! I’ll cut your a——I swear to god—if you do it one more time!'”

It’s easy to understand where both men were coming from, as Crosby was trying to make a name for himself while Gruden was obviously more concerned with getting the chance to see his offense run out entire plays as opposed to having them stopped at the line of scrimmage.

At least it all worked out in the end.