With 76 days until the opening game of 2020, we start the count down with the best Raiders player at every jersey number. Today we focus on No. 76.
With the season a few months away, we take a look at the best player to wear the jersey number of the number of days left before the opener on September 13, 2020 against the Carolina Panthers. That game will kick off the new era of Raiders football.
We continue our series with No. 76.
This year the Raiders selected an offensive guard in John Simpson who has chosen to wear the number 76 jersey. We wrote in May when the numbers were announced that Simpson has some massive shoes to fill and he would need to do a whole hell of a lot to even be in this conversation. The former Clemson Tiger will likely not start his rookie year so he’ll have even more catching up to do to match the honoree here.
Before we jump in to the obvious selection, a quick note to give the much maligned Robert Gallery some praise. Gallery was recently listed as one of the worst draft picks in Raiders history and that had more to do with his draft position than anything else. On paper Gallery looked to be an elite left tackle prospect and had all the makings of a generational player but being stuck on some bad teams and just not being good enough made him a serviceable offensive guard at best.
The problem is you don’t take serviceable offensive guards second overall, even if they end up playing almost 100 games for your team. Gallery is a victim of his own hype and will not get many plaudits but he worked hard and still had a long NFL career.
Now on to the honoree.