Las Vegas Raiders: Top-5 Running Backs in team history
By Jason Willis
After a dominating stretch over the last few weeks, Josh Jacobs has earned national attention. While it’s early, where does he rank in Raiders history?
The Las Vegas Raiders have gotten strong play from Josh Jacobs during the 2022 NFL season, and many feel they need to extend him and keep him in the Silver and Black indefinitely. His strong play has caused us to look at the top running backs in team history, a list that is littered with some of the best the game has ever seen.
Without further ado, here is our top-5 Raiders running backs of all-time.
Las Vegas Raiders: Top-5 Running Backs in team history
player. 28. . . . Bo Jackson. 5
In all of NFL history, there has only been one player like Bo Jackson. One of the greatest college football players of all time, he was a seventh-round pick of the Raiders in 1987. When he wasn’t playing professional baseball, he would immediately slot in as the starting running back in Oakland.
To make this even more impressive, Jackson would take the starting job from future Hall of Famer Marcus Allen. His exploits are legendary, including the Monday Night Football game against the Seahawks when he plowed through Brian Bosworth on national television. He would finish that game with 221 rushing yards and two touchdowns, a Raiders record in his rookie season.
Of course, his baseball career would limit the number of games he played in an NFL season. In addition to this, his NFL career was unfortunately cut short by a freak hip injury. So, after just four electrifying seasons, he would finish with just 2,782 yards and 16 touchdowns on the ground. The rushing total places him fifteenth all-time in team history.
While he is arguably the greatest athlete of all time, his NFL career was simply too short to rank higher on this list. With a full career, who knows what his career would have looked like but unfortunately he is simply a “what if?” story.