The Oakland Raiders were facing off with the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 11. Unsurprisingly, they came away with the win.
That moved the Raiders to 6-4, while the Bengals fell to a miserable 0-10.
The story of the night was not the Raiders sneaking out a 17-10 win over arguably the worst team in the NFL. What was the story, was Maxx Crosby. The rookie defensive lineman came into the game with 2.5 sacks on the year.
In Week 11, he racked up four sacks. That's a franchise rookie record for sacks in a game.
And that's a single-game #Raiders rookie record for sacks as @CrosbyMaxx has 4 today…
— Paul Gutierrez (@PGutierrezESPN) November 18, 2019
Crosby was a fourth-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. He's coming out of Eastern Michigan and having a fantastic rookie year.
While many expected him to play a pretty decent role in 2019, you couldn't really expect this. He's had a significant role in a lot of Oakland's games, and that obviously includes Week 11.
With a 6-4 record now, the Raiders have a legitimate shot at the playoffs. Crosby has been an important piece of the defense so far this year. However, it looks like maybe he's ready to take the next step and be that much more of a factor.
Barring something crazy, Crosby likely won't win defensive rookie of the year. He now has 6.5 sacks on the season, which is pretty impressive. However, he's battling with star-power names. Josh Allen, Nick Bosa and others have the recognition and the stats.
Even if Crosby ends up with similar stats, he simply hasn't gotten the recognition. Maybe this is the game that puts him on the map. We'll see how the rest of his season goes, at worst, it should be really fun to watch.
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