BEREA, Ohio — Will Browns rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders catch a huge break in his NFL starting debut?
Raiders premier edger rusher Maxx Crosby, who’s been dealing with a knee injury on and off this season, was added to the Raiders injury report on Thursday as limited with a knee injury.
Crosby, who sat out the Raiders’ 20-16 victory over the Browns last year with an ankle injury -- the first game he had missed in his then six-year career -- has a team-high six sacks, 14 tackles for a loss, 12 quarterback hits, six passes defensed and one interception. In their loss to the Cowboys on Monday night, he strip-sacked Dak Prescott.
If Crosby can’t play, it would be an enormous break for Sanders as he makes his first start for the Browns in place of a concussed Dillon Gabriel, who remains in the protocol.
“He’s obviously a great player, extremely disruptive, both run and pass,” offensive coordinator Tommy Rees said. “Even when he’s not getting to the passer, he affects so many passes by getting his hands up, getting in passing lanes. I think he does a nice job of reading the quarterback and getting, when he’s not getting a great rush, of finding ways to mirror and disrupt the ball.
“Relentless front side, backside of the run game. His motor is tremendous. He’s one of those guys across the league that can really impact games and change games defensively. He had a strip sack against Dallas, he had interception against Chicago.”
Rees noted that Crosby’s “playtime is about as high as any of those guys in the league. You look at that upper echelon group of rushers, his playtime’s about the highest.”
Left guard Joel Bitonio praised him too.
“Yeah, a great player,” he said. “He plays tremendously hard, plays a lot of snaps. Most of them are maybe at 70%. He’s probably at like 85, 90% of the snaps, maybe more, but I think he plays hard and it’s contagious. The whole D-line kind of plays hard off of that, but I mean he’s so slippery. You see him kind of moving and doing these things and he just kind of slips off blocks or finds a way to get his hands on the ball and I think we’ll have a decent plan to try and try and contain that.”
He said Crosby’s knack for getting his hands up is uncanny.
“It’s pretty impressive,” he said. “I think sometimes when he gets chipped or double teamed, he’ll make a conscious effort to be like, ‘all right, I’m not getting to the quarterback on this play.’ And then he almost starts playing volleyball at the line of scrimmage, which is pretty impressive. I think those guys just have such an instinct for plays and the way they do things that he’s like, ‘yeah, I’m not going to affect the quarterback on this play, but I could still maybe make a play for my defense.’”
Crosby told reporters Thursday that “I’ve known Shedeur for a very long time, we had a great relationship... We’ve got to get after him.”
He added, “I watched a lot of him. I know his family really well. They’re great people. I always rooted for him. So it’s cool. I’m happy for him he’s getting his first start.”
Will Coach Prime attend Sanders’ first start?
Deion Sanders told reporters in Colorado he’s still undecided on whether or not to attend his son’s first NFL start vs. the Raiders in Vegas on Sunday.
“You don’t want to be his distraction,” Deion said. “But then you think, you know he came all the way up here to see you? So that’s even a shorter trip to go see him.
“You start thinking that as a dad.”
Shedeur surprised his dad at Colorado over the bye week.
Last week, when Sanders replaced Dillon Gabriel in the second half of the 23-16 loss to the Ravens, Deion cried tears of joy. Sanders struggled early on, but almost pulled off the come-from-behind victory when he hit fellow rookie Gage Larvadain in the hands with the potential gamewinning touchdown pass. Cornerback Chidobe Awuzie broke up the pass.
Raiders OC Chip Kelly on Myles Garrett
Raiders offensive coordinator Chip Kelly was asked how his o-line facing Crosby will help them with Myles Garrett on Sunday. Garrett leads the NFL with 15.0 sacks and is on pace to break the all-time record of 22.5 this season.
“Well, Maxx [Crosby] can’t play O-line,” Kelly said. “We already checked to see if he could do that, but I think we’d tire him out a little bit. But there’s similarities I think just because they’re both tremendous athletes for their size, and I think they that’s the one thing about Myles [Garrett] that when you look at him, obviously he’s a freakish looking guy. He’s 270 something pounds and moves like a linebacker, but then when you watch his movement skill, you’re like there aren’t many big people that move that way.
“So going against Maxx in OTAs and things like that I think can help our tackles in terms of some of those things, but I don’t know if there’s anybody out there that can really simulate Myles, because as I said he’s got 15 sacks right now and, and we’re 10 games in. He’s on track to set the record in the history of the league for sacks. So, he’s as good as we’re going to face out there. So that’s got a ton of attention for us.”
David Njoku misses a second straight day
Njoku sat out for the second straight day with his knee injury suffered in the loss to the Ravens. But he’s making every effort to play on Sunday.
Receiver Jamari Thrash was added to the injury report Thursday with a foot injury, and offensive tackles Cam Robinson and Jack Conklin were both limited again with their knee injuries.
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