Maxx Crosby credits his wife, Rachel Washburn, for helping him become a “stronger” version of himself.

The 27-year-old Las Vegas Raider will be five years clean in March, and he tells PEOPLE during a talk at the SiriusXM set at Media Row in New Orleans ahead of Super Bowl LIX that his “partner in crime” got him through the tough times.

“She’s my rock,” Crosby adds. “I wouldn’t be here without her.”

The Michigan native, who was picked by the Raiders in 2019 while still in Oakland, married Washburn, a collegiate soccer player at Eastern Michigan University when they met, on March 4, 2023, at a magnificent Nevada wedding in Boulder City.

They have a two-year-old daughter, Ella, who Crosby describes as his “world.”

Crosby expresses gratitude to his wife for her support in his sobriety, which the defensive end claims he “wouldn’t be in this position” or “here in general” without. “I was living a crazy, fast lifestyle, and addiction is genuine. It’s an illness, something that was extremely difficult for me, but at the end of the day, you constantly hear people say you can’t change, people don’t change, they are who they are, and I truly believe that’s not true.”

“You’ve got to be able to go through some hard times if you really want it,” according to Crosby. “To truly desire a relationship, one must endure immense hardships, and our shared experiences have only strengthened us.”

The former Raiders player recalls that he “had to go to a dark place” and “live through that” in order to emerge stronger from those difficult times. “It made me so much stronger, and it made me a better person,” he told me.

“I love the person I am, and the person I look in the mirror and see now, and I wasn’t able to say that when I was younger going through what I went through, and that means more than anything,” says he.

Crosby asserts that the opportunity to raise his daughter with Washburn holds immense significance for him. Being the best version of myself both on and off the field is incredibly important to Crosby.

And now that he’s a stronger version of himself, Crosby was eager to assist his favorite underwear company, SAXX, in selecting college football players for the brand’s Gamechanger ambassador program.

Crosby was especially eager to present the brand to Ashton Jeanty of Eastern State University, whom he describes as a lock for the first round of the NFL draft.

“They support what I believe in,” Crosby says of SAXX’s business ideals, noting that they also provide “the best underwear in the game.”