Defensive End · Las Vegas Raiders

Keyron Crawford

No. 42 · Rookie

One high school season. One scholarship offer. One shot his mother needed him to take.

Keyron Crawford grew up in northern Memphis as one of four siblings, raised by Kimberly Crawford on her own. He has talked about watching what that cost her -- the weight of it -- and how it settled into a kind of resolve. Football had to work. Not eventually. Now.

The thing is, Crawford barely knew what football was.

He spent three years at Raleigh-Egypt High School as a basketball player. That was his sport, his identity. Then he transferred to Briarcrest Christian School in Eads, Tennessee for his senior year, and during a school tour, head coach Brian Stewart saw something in him and told him right there: he could play Division I football. Crawford took it home to his mother. They talked. He decided to give it one shot in his final year of high school.

One shot. One season. One year to learn a sport from scratch at age 18, in a program he had just arrived at, playing with teammates who had been doing this their whole lives.

He recorded 78 tackles and 14 sacks that season. Regional defensive MVP. Invitations to the AutoZone Liberty Bowl All-Star Game and the Nashville All-American Bowl. Three-star ratings from 247Sports, Rivals, and ESPN. A scholarship offer from Arkansas State, with Iowa and Nebraska also extending offers. Crawford signed with Arkansas State.

All of this in a sport he had not played in organized competition a year earlier. Briarcrest also gave him something harder to measure -- he has credited the school with teaching him how to carry himself, how to talk to people, how to plan. He arrived not knowing what a safety was. He left with a college scholarship and a set of tools he would keep reaching for.

From Arkansas State he transferred to Auburn, where he earned a team captain designation for the 2025 season despite having only one full year in the program. His teammates voted that trust into him, and he has spoken about what that meant as he prepared to leave college for the NFL. Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze's faith-based approach shaped that final stretch, Crawford has said, giving him a framework to carry into the next chapter.

The Las Vegas Raiders drafted him. The kid from northern Memphis who spent most of his life in a gym, who had never played organized football until his senior year of high school, who got his first scholarship offer in his first season, is now in the NFL.

Kimberly Crawford raised four children alone. Her son said it was him or never. He was not wrong.

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