Countdown to 2020: Best Raiders player to wear No. 54 all-time

With 54 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. 54.

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. 54.

There have been a handful of former players who have done the No. 54 justice in the history of the team, including Thomas Benson, a starting linebacker for the franchise in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Benson played a key role on the 1990 team, which should have made a Super Bowl run had Bo Jackson not gotten injured.

Before Benson took over at linebacker for the franchise, Reggie McKenzie was a full-time starter in 1985 and 1986, starting all 32 games in that span. McKenzie played both inside and outside linebacker for the Raiders, but more recently, he was the architect of the 2016 team that was the first to make it to the playoffs since the 2002 season.

For our top No. 54 in team history, he was nearly a part of one of the biggest plays in the history of the franchise.