The Las Vegas Raiders have had some decorated pass rushers in their history, let’s take a look at the top-15 of all-time.
Over the course of the last 60 years, the Las Vegas Raiders have become one of the most decorated franchises in NFL history. The foundation of the franchise is laid in the motto “Commitment to Excellence” coined by the late, great Al Davis.
In those 60 years, the Raiders have produced some pretty incredible football players. Multiple former players are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, with plenty of others engraved in team record books, biding their time until they are inducted.
It is incredibly fun, yet incredibly difficult, to go back and look through team records to attempt a ‘ranking’ for players that played in different eras. It is hard to compare a Raider from the 1970s to one that has been on the roster in the last decade. Even tougher, it is nearly impossible to rank pass rushers that hailed from different eras.
The ‘sack’, as it is known today, was not an official stat until 1982. That means pass rushers from before 1982 do not have official sack totals, merely unofficial tallies from the brave souls that dug back through box scores and old video to try to give them the credit they deserve.
With that in mind, using a combination of sack totals, tackles for loss, quarterback hits and impact on team success, I took a shot at ranking the top-15 pass rushers in Raiders history.
As a disclaimer, the statistics on some players may be unofficial estimates due to sacks not being properly tallied until 1982 and tackles for loss not really being tracked until 1999. However, they are still a good ballpark estimate of their production.
Let’s begin with some honorable mentions that didn’t make the final cut. Richard Seymour, Lamarr Houston, Roderick Coleman and Darrell Russell all barely missed out, but were incredible pass rushers for the Raiders in their own right.