When the Pittsburgh Steelers play the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 3, count on Pat Freiermuth hoping he doesn’t have to see much of DE Maxx Crosby again. Appearing on Friday’s episode of Pardon My Take, Freiermuth told co-hosts Big Katz and PFT Commenter that Crosby has been the hardest player he’s been asked to block, an understandably difficult assignment considering how often Crosby beats up on tackles, let alone tight ends.
“Maxx Crosby,” Freiermuth said without skipping a beat when asked who the hardest player to block is. “Dude, he fucked me up. It was so bad.”
He’s hardly alone. Crosby is one of the NFL’s best pass rushers, and no one had more tackles for a loss last season than Crosby’s 22. In the Steelers’ win over the Raiders, Crosby didn’t tear up the stat sheet but still impacted the game and commanded plenty of attention.
Here’s just one example of Freiermuth trying to take on Crosby. In this clip, Freiermuth is the Y-off, pulling across on this split zone action and trying to block a crashing Crosby but just bouncing off him instead.
At one point during the game, Freiermuth looked back to Pickett as part apology, part advice.
“He sent me flying,” Freiermuth said. “I looked up, Kenny [Pickett] will [confirm] this story, like, ‘Dude, what do you want me to do?’ [He said] ‘I don’t know, go low?’ Maxx Crosby is a hell of a player.”
A diamond in the rough who overcame an alcohol addiction, Crosby was the Raiders’ 4th-round pick of the 2019 draft. Coming off a career year, he racked up 12.5 sacks in addition to his league-leading tackles for loss in 2022. He’s been consistently successful despite all the attention he garners as the Raiders’ sole pass-rush threat. Last year, no other Raider had more than five sacks and only one other had more than a pair.
Freiermuth won’t escape seeing Crosby in 2023. Pittsburgh and Las Vegas square off in Week 3. Maybe he can pawn off some of those blocking duties to third-round pick Darnell Washington, who was drafted to be an impact blocker with the size and strength to matchup against 4-3 base ends like Crosby.
