Las Vegas Raiders: 50 greatest players in franchise history

Ted Hendricks was an outstanding football player with an incredible nickname (“The Mad Stork”) and a pretty good ‘stache as well. He starred collegiately for the Miami Hurricanes before being a second-round pick by the Baltimore Colts in the 1969 NFL Draft. Hendricks would spend his first five seasons with the Colts, winning Super Bowl V.

After playing briefly with the Green Bay Packers in 1974, Hendricks would make his way to the Silver and Black in 1975. It was a great time to be a Raider, as Hendricks would be a part of all three Super Bowl Championship teams with the Silver and Black. After making four trips to the Pro Bowl in his first six years in the league split between the Colts and Packers, Hendricks would rattle off four more in his final four years of his Hall of Fame career.

Overall, Hendricks made eight Pro Bowls in his 15-year NFL career. He made it on four All-Pro first teams. Hendricks is a member of the NFL’s 75th Anniversary Team, the 1970s All-Decade Team, and the 1980s All-Decade Team despite only playing through the 1983 NFL season.

Hendricks earned Canton enshrinement in 1990. His Pro Football Hall of Fame classmates include Buck Buchanan, Tom Landry, and Bob St. Clair. Hendricks is not only inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, but an annual award is named after him. The Ted Hendricks Award goes to the best defensive end in college football. He is one of three former Raiders to have a college football award named after him. We’ll get to the other two guys here in a minute.