Raiders' Crosby calls assistant coach's push 'love push'

LAS VEGAS – As frustrating as the day was for Maxx Crosby in the Las Vegas Raiders' 32-13 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Raiders Pro Bowl edge rusher said his sideline push on assistant coach Mike Caldwell ended the game was a “love push.”

The incident was caught by CBS cameras after Crosby, along with defensive tackle John Jenkins, sacked Justin Fields late in the game.

“My phone dies while I'm lying in the cold tub trying to get ready for next week and people, you know how they do it – they just spin stories,” Crosby said with a laugh. “Mike Caldwell is a great guy. We have a great relationship and we do this all the time. It's like people see it: 'Oh, they lose and then Maxx pushes him.'”

Caldwell, who played 11 seasons as a linebacker in the NFL, is the Raiders' running game coordinator/linebackers coach.

“That's how we play football – we're grown men, we're alpha males, we don't greet each other the same way,” Crosby added. “So he cheered me up and I cheered him up.

“We are down, but it has shown that we are not giving up.”

Crosby then spent several seconds looking at the cameras in the postgame huddle at his locker, saying “I love Mike Caldwell” three times and “That's my guy” twice.

“There's literally zero…it's made entirely of dust,” Crosby said. “The (CBS) camera made it look bad. It looked like I was kicking him out of the club, but that wasn’t the case at all.”

Crosby laughed about the incident, but neither he nor Raiders coach Antonio Pierce was in the mood to joke about the state of the team after three turnovers and a blocked punt helped Las Vegas' record drop to 2-4.

“Our record is what it is … it’s not good enough,” Pierce said. “We don’t train well enough, we don’t play well enough and we don’t go into detail enough. More importantly, if you turn the ball over, you don’t give yourself a chance.”

“It starts with discipline – we had (only) four penalties but they were at critical moments. The ball loss thing is embarrassing. We don't respect the ball enough, so we don't even deserve a chance to put ourselves in position to win.”

The Raiders' turnover margin this season is the worst in the NFL, minus-10, according to ESPN Research, the worst in six games since 2006. That turnover margin is also the worst in six games in the NFL since the 2021 Jacksonville Jaguars.

Las Vegas has been outscored 39-14 in turnovers this season, the second-worst mark in the league.

Crosby, who now leads his team with 5.5 sacks through five games, said: “You can fall into the crowd and be like everyone else and be negative and sad. (But) I'm blessed… blessed to be able to play.” I would play this game if it made me zero dollars. I live it every day, so it doesn't stop me.

“The outside world will try to find everything they can to bring us down and rightly so after a game like this. This is bullshit. We have to find ways to get better and that sucks for the fans. “That’s what I want.” to show them the best version of ourselves, and we haven’t been able to do that.

“So unfortunately we lost, but we have to react. That’s literally all we can do.”