Free agent offensive lineman Tyrell Crosby underwent spinal fusion surgery in December, and multiple doctors have advised him to walk away from football, as Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press writes. Crosby told the Free Press that he is not ready to call it quits just yet, and he also levied some serious allegations against the Lions organization.
Detroit selected Crosby in the fifth round of the 2018 draft, and he started seven games over his first two years in the league before becoming the club’s primary right tackle in 2020. Although he struggled as a run blocker that year, he earned an above-average 68.1 grade from Pro Football Focus for his efforts in pass protection, and his overall score of 64.2 was solid enough. In 2021, the final year of his rookie contract, it seemed Crosby would be in line for at least a swing tackle role, but he was off the roster before the regular season got underway.
The Oregon product skipped voluntary workouts last spring — he says that he only did so because he was homesick and wanted to remain with his family after the pandemic kept him away during the 2020 season — and when mandatory minicamp rolled around, then-OC Anthony Lynn suggested that he had missed OTAs because he was “scared to compete.” Crosby added that head coach Dan Campbell and GM Brad Holmes spoke with him privately and accused him of not caring about his teammates, the coaching staff, or the city of Detroit.
In the second week of training camp, Crosby sustained a mild hamstring injury that knocked him out for most of the preseason. During his rehab, he says that he complained of back pain to trainers and coaches, only to have those complaints dismissed. In late August, he returned to practice on a limited basis, but he suffered from unrelenting back spasms. He missed his weight room workout on his first day back at practice and was fined $5K as a result, even though he only missed the workout because he was getting treatment for his back.
Several days later, he complained about the back pain again, and assistant trainer Tom Colt asked if he could play a few snaps in that week’s preseason finale against the Colts. Crosby said he could, and he struggled through nine snaps in that contest. He was waived with an injury designation several days later, and at that time, Holmes sarcastically thanked him for playing through the injury.
Crosby subsequently cleared waivers and reverted to injured reserve after declining the Lions’ offer of a four-week injury settlement. Over the next few months, Crosby saw several doctors and attempted rehab with no success. That process also included a complication from a cortisone shot that caused a leak of spinal fluid and led to debilitating headaches. Detroit allegedly continued to downplay Crosby’s concerns, and after a spine specialist discovered that the discs in Crosby’s lower back had degenerated to the point that his back was collapsing on the left side, he underwent the fusion surgery.
That is not necessarily a career-ending procedure, though Crosby says he has struggled to get into playing shape. He has not lifted weights seriously in almost a year, and while he can do certain abdominal and body-weight workouts, it sounds as if he is a long way away from getting back on the field, if he is ever able to do so.
The Lions have declined to comment on Crosby’s accusations.
Rub some dirt on it, Sally.
From the things that other players (and not the BS media) have said, this is complete ridiculousness. Tyrell Crosby isn’t a helpless victim in all this. Yes, more should’ve been done to diagnose his back degeneration and that’s a sad tale for sure. But he had started to let himself go well before all of this took place. He has ballooned up quite a bit and ignored the teams requests to get down to a playable weight. When you are paid to be a professional athlete, it is on you to stay in shape on your own time in order to do your job successfully and from what was said he didn’t do anything, even smaller things when he was injured that involved lite cardio. He made his back problems worse with adding a bunch of unhealthy weight. He also from what was said totally disregarded teammates in their attempts to get him back on track. So yes the Lions are at blame but he should be too.
It is a very complex situation that you probably wouldn’t Understand and that is because you do not want to and because you are not able to Understand the culture of NFL franchises and how many strive to change it but what is the “culture of an NFL franchise”? The “culture” is based on something… Right?
Culture of pretending, media narratives, denial and greed is NEVER a healthy work environment and stunts players by creating drama and spreading lies about them so it is quite literally a game of down playing things regardless whether they are based in truth or not so it’s safe to say that the team and Dan Campbell and everyone associated with them all right fault here and started this whole situation and this is why Dan Campbell Will Never Be an Effective leader because he doesn’t know how to grow with players she only knows how to chase them away and correct them and that’s fine in 1922 but it doesn’t work in 2022.
When Dan and Jared are fired, people like you will still be here pushing the official team narrative but why? Because that is American culture to trust the systems and narratives around you and only it mad when you find out that you’ve been lied to instead of seeing things happen and real time so that’s where I come into play to teach all of you how to see beyond what’s being presented to you so let me know if you’re ready to learn
Ready to learn? You don’t use proper punctuation, sentence structure or capitalization. Forgive me if I consider the source.
Also, who’s Jared?
Guess Detroit should have put in an independent health clause in there!
Yeah but then you would have to give people like Dan Campbell a “tell the Truth” clause and that would never work and for anyone involved.
Dan Campbell is an Entertainer and a media personality and that’s fine but in America those types are usually very narcissistic respond according to what they feel people want to hear and we call this a “BSer” in America but in reality they are master manipulators and almost always get ahead and come out looking good or with some type of credit for someone’s successes…
I could Enlighten you all to the Truth but I’m not sure if you’d even be able to recognize it at this point because you are cultured to be entertained and Trust in the systems and what people are telling you and in 2022 that is very very dangerous approach but I guess this is why you need more police, Mr. America…
I believe about 85% of what Tyrell is saying and I’m sure he milked it and was playing the game as well when the relationship went South but let’s not forget how these relationships always tend to go south and that is because new coaching staffs come in and do not try to develop relationships with players and they just go down the list real quick and make decisions on guys as if everything they’ve done up until that point doesn’t matter.
See, to understand what’s going on in the NFL Locker room, you have to understand what’s going on in America as a country and we like to pretend things don’t exist and downplay and minimize practically everything that makes us look bad but we struggle with truth and have relied heavily on media narratives instead of Truth so Dan Campbell is pushing the narrative it’s just who he is.
He has an agenda and that is to paint himself in a positive light and at all times so his words cannot be trusted.
Brad Holmes was supposed to be different. The fact that he brought Jerrrd Gawf with him just shows that he cannot build a team or just didn’t see this coming and is learning on the job which is fine but certain jobs require you to move faster. This shouldn’t take 5-6 years. You’re lying to yourself if you believe that
So Sheila and Dan and Brad are not truth-based people and we should probably believe the other guy or atleast start there and look at those who are constantly trying to tell us what we want to hear with suspicion instead
He had to take Goff in order to move Stafford, he didn’t bring him with him. Taking on Goff also resulted in the Lions gaining extra draft capitol. Holmes has been the GM for 18 months, don’t see this taking 5-6 years
For a know-it-all who thinks they’ve got it all figured out, you’ve brought nothing but opinions, speculation and bad grammar to the table while bringing literally zero evidence to substantiate even a fraction of the phony, high-minded drivel you’re spewing.