Fresh off the best season of his five-year career, Maxx Crosby is setting out to improve upon it.
The Raiders pass-rushing maven set new personal bests in 2023 with 14.5 sacks, 90 tackles and a league-leading 23 tackles for loss, all while battling injuries for the majority of the year.
The experience of gutting through 17 games for a third consecutive season, spending seemingly as much time on the injury report as he did making plays, has caused Crosby to reevaluate his preparation.
"I was damn near limited every single day, the whole season in practice, and things like that," Crosby said, via ESPN's Paul Gutierrez. "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."
Crosby suffered the knee injury that would plague him for the remainder of the campaign in Week 2, yet he went on to play 100% of the team's defensive snaps in 10 more games, and dipped below 80% only once, when Las Vegas leaned on reserves amid a 63-21 blowout of the Los Angeles Chargers.
His hitting the 80% snap threshold includes a Week 12 game against the Chiefs in which Crosby entered the weekend with a doubtful designation. He came out of that weekend having tallied another sack, then logged two more in his next contest along with a season-high 10 tackles.
He remained, through it all, the Raiders' most consistent player, a constant during a season that saw Las Vegas fire its head coach and start three different quarterbacks before November.
The team's season ended on Jan. 7. Within three and a half weeks, Crosby underwent one procedure on his knee and another on his thumb.
"I had to get two major surgeries, and it's been different, but at the end of the day, there's not one street to get to where you want to go, there's multiple," he said. "And for me, I trust the people around me, trust my team, everyone involved, to get me back to 100 percent. And then also taking that next step."
Now mended, Crosby's been seeking the right path not only to stay healthy, but to increase his output in the year ahead.
There's still room to grow after three straight Pro Bowls. Crosby has still never cracked the top three in Defensive Player of the Year voting or received recognition as a first-team All-Pro. Such a jump could be made easier by having a defensive-minded head coach he pounded the table for in Antonio Pierce and new star additions to take the pressure off like defensive tackle Christian Wilkins.
Injuries, as always, will also play a factor, though Crosby is hoping he's worked his way through them for now.
"It's been a hell of an offseason," he said. "So, it's been a hell of a ride back."
