The Las Vegas Raiders announced the numbers for the 2020 rookie class, what do they need to do to become the greatest to wear their numbers in Silver and Black?
What’s in a number? For certain players in the history of the Raiders, a number is everything. No matter who else dons the number in the future, the great Raiders will be forever tied to the digits they displayed on their uniform.
Howie Long will always be number 75, Ken Stabler will always be 12, Gene Upshaw will always be number 63, Jim Otto will always be number 00, and so many more.
The Raiders do not retire jersey numbers because, according to former CEO Amy Trask, Al Davis was sensitive to hurting some former players who did not have their numbers retired. Trask told the Sacramento Bee:
"“I discussed this subject with Al numerous times over the course of my career. One concern he repeatedly articulated was what I will describe as a sensitivity to not excluding or omitting any players. In other words, where do you stop? If you retire the numbers of players X and Y and Z, are you hurting players A and B and C? Where do you draw the line? In other words, the law of unintended consequences: by honoring some you are by definition omitting others, and he was very sensitive to that. That was the discussion we had for many years, and then the league adopted a rule prohibiting teams from retiring numbers, the ostensible reason for which was that teams could ‘run out of numbers.’”"
So because of that, we may see some of the greatest Raiders of all time share their jersey numbers with rookies or no-name free agents but with the 2020 rookie class getting their numbers this week, we ask what they would have to do to surpass the greatest Raiders who also donned that number.