Las Vegas Raiders punish quarterback Kirk Cousins and defensive end Maxx Crosby after scuffle at training camp
The Las Vegas Raiders are taking things seriously, so much so they have punished both Kirk Cousins and Maxx Crosby.
On Friday, the Las Vegas Raiders had a scuffle during training camp practice. Quarterback Kirk Cousins and defensive end Maxx Crosby got into it. As a result, they were benched during team periods on Saturday.
“We have very clear expectations on how we want to practice and how we want to go about our business, and we violated that yesterday,” head coach Klint Kubiak told reporters on Saturday.
Cousins threw a pair of red-zone interceptions, one to Jeremy Chinn and another to rookie cornerback Hezekiah Massis, who continues to flash, on Friday. He wasn’t playing well, and frustration continued to build.
These bad plays from Cousins are what led to the scuffle between him and Maxx Crosby. Crosby reportedly hit Cousins’ arm on one of the interceptions, sparking the scuffle. Cousins cleaned things up afterward and finished the session strong. But you simply cannot have two INTs in that part of the field. And, if you’re Crosby, you just cannot hit Cousins, the quarterback. This is what he does, though.
He gets into the offense’s head, and it works. If you’re Cousins, you have to be able to not feed into that. Kubiak mentioned on Friday after practice that if that was a game, both sides would be thrown out, and punches would be thrown. They have to treat practice like a game.
Fernando Mendoza filled in for Kirk Cousins with the ones at training camp
Firstly, you love to see this kind of discipline and coaching from Klint Kubiak. There’s a standard being put in place. Disciplining even your most important players, and the guys who are franchise players like Crosby, shows the rest of the team that you’re not playing around.
This was partly a good thing. Fernando Mendoza got his first reps with the ones during team periods. The team got to see him work in that sort of situation, and that’s perfect. And, from everything we have heard and seen, he did well. So, maybe Saturday was still a good practice regardless of the two missing out.
