NFL Made Raiders’ Maxx Crosby Change Sobriety-Themed Facemask

from 10/19/23 Uni Watch

In this week’s Monday Morning Uni Watch report, I noted that Raiders defensive lineman Maxx Crosby had swapped out his unusual facemask design, which he’d been wearing for the first five weeks of the season, for a more conventional design.

Crosby, as it turns out, has a podcast, and he addressed the mask switcheroo on this week’s episode. You can listen to the relevant segment here, or just read this transcript:

Podcast co-host Brogan Roback: The facemask was different [on Sunday]. Normally you’ve got that triangle on your facemask. What is up with that? You came out with a different helmet today. Can you just speak on what was up with that?

Maxx Crosby: You know, being real honest, I love the National Football League, everything we represent. But Roger Goodell, we gotta get on a call. We gotta get face to face, I want talk to you. So, they made me take my facemask off. I played the first five weeks, not one word. We play on Monday night, my face on the screen a lot — there’s too much going on, I guess, for Roger, and he sent in a nice email saying it has to go.

I’m like, Rog, what are we doing? I’m out here representing sobriety to the fullest. I got a tattoo on my neck, my hands, everywhere. So I put it on my facemask, it means a lot to me, it means a lot to all the people watching — they understand what’s going on. And, you know, it just rubbed me the wrong way. But we’re gonna have our conversation.

Roback: What does the triangle mean to you? Because everyone sees it all over you. If you’re open to telling everyone that, what does the triangle mean specifically to you?

Crosby: The triangle to me represents sobriety. It’s everything. It’s why I’m here. And why I’m doing this podcast with you. It’s why I got a beautiful daughter and family. A great fucking circle of people. It’s literally everything. If I didn’t make that decision to clean my life up and get in AA and the 12 steps, I wouldn’t be here. So that’s literally what it comes down to. It represents everything that I got going on.

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