“She’s my support,” the veteran Raider shares with PEOPLE as he gets ready to celebrate five years of sobriety.<\/p>\n
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Maxx Crosby expresses gratitude to his wife, Rachel Washburn, for assisting him in becoming a “stronger” version of himself.<\/p>\n
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The 27-year-old Las Vegas Raider will reach five years of sobriety in March, and he shares with PEOPLE during a chat at the SiriusXM stage at Media Row in New Orleans before Super Bowl LIX that it was his “partner in crime” who supported him during the tough times.<\/p>\n
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“She is my support,” states Crosby. “I wouldn’t be present without her.”<\/p>\n
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The Michigan local \u2014 drafted by the Raiders in 2019 while they were still located in Oakland \u2014 wedded Washburn, a college soccer athlete at Eastern Michigan University when they crossed paths, in an extravagant Nevada wedding in Boulder City on March 4, 2023.<\/p>\n
They have a 2-year-old daughter, Ella, whom Crosby describes as his “world.”<\/p>\n
Crosby expresses gratitude to his wife for her assistance in his sobriety, which he claims he “wouldn’t be in this position” or “here at all” without. “I was leading an intense life, a quick life, and addiction is genuine.” It’s an illness, something that was quite difficult for me, but ultimately, you often hear individuals claim that people can’t change, that they remain the same, and I truly believe that.<\/p>\n
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“You need to endure difficult moments if you truly desire it,” Crosby adds. “If you genuinely wish to be united, you must endure hardships and emerge stronger; we’ve faced numerous challenges together, and it has only fortified our bond.” That\u2019s completely untrue.<\/p>\n
The veteran Raiders player remembers that he “needed to enter a dark place” and “experience that” to come out stronger from those bleak times. “It empowered me greatly and transformed me into a better individual,” he expresses.<\/p>\n
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“I cherish the individual I have become and the reflection I see in the mirror today, which I couldn’t express when I was younger while facing my struggles, and that holds greater significance than anything,” he continues.<\/p>\n
Crosby additionally states that having the chance to “raise [his] daughter” with Washburn “means everything” to him. “Striving to be the best version of myself both on the field and in life means everything,” he says.<\/p>\n
Now that he has become a stronger version of himself, Crosby was thrilled to assist his favorite underwear brand SAXX in choosing college football players for the brand’s Gamechanger ambassador program.<\/p>\n
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Crosby was particularly thrilled to present the brand to Ashton Jeanty, from his alma mater Eastern State University, whom Crosby considers a sure bet for being chosen in the first round of the NFL draft.<\/p>\n
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“They align with my beliefs,” Crosby remarks about SAXX’s company principles, adding that they “offer the top underwear on the market.”<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“She’s my support,” the veteran Raider shares with PEOPLE as he gets ready to celebrate five years of sobriety. Maxx Crosby expresses gratitude to his wife, Rachel Washburn, for assisting him in becoming a “stronger” version of himself. The 27-year-old Las Vegas Raider will reach five years of sobriety in March, and he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"\n