When the Raiders returned to Oakland in 1995 after a successful 13-year tenure in Los Angeles, nobody could have predicted what the next 25 years would have in store for the organization.
Not only did the team fail to replicate the greatness of the Silver and Black teams who won three Super Bowls in a span of eight seasons during the 1970s and 80s, but they sunk to the bottom of the NFL food chain. Legendary owner Al Davis passed away in 2011 in the midst of an eight-year postseason drought, and it would be another five seasons before the team found its way back into the playoffs.
It wasn't long after that Davis' son, Mark, announced that the franchise would be relocating once again, this time to Las Vegas, Nevada. That meant that in the quarter of a century that the team spent back in Oakland, the franchise had only four winning seasons, including just one in the final 17 years.
On Thursday morning, former Raiders offensive lineman Jon Feliciano announced his retirement, and it brought about an unsettling feeling. Feliciano was drafted by the franchise way back in 2015, and it begged the question: how many players are left in the NFL that were drafted by the Oakland Raiders?
The short answer is 15.
Among them are stars like Maxx Crosby, Josh Jacobs and Khalil Mack, but the list continues to shrink as the years pass.
Good players like Kolton Miller, Amari Cooper and Derek Carr started their careers in Oakland and continue to have success in the NFL, but the rest of the list is not as promising:
Clelin Ferrell, Arden Key, Jihad Ward, Mario Edwards Jr., Foster Moreau, Maurice Hurst Jr., Jonathan Abram, Shelby Harris and Quinton Bell.
Several of these players are enjoying nice, long careers in the NFL, but almost none of them had their best years with the Silver and Black. In fact, only a handful of them were even around when the team transitioned to Las Vegas.
Crosby and Jacobs will likely be the final two players in the NFL whose careers began in Oakland. When the day comes that both of them retire, the Raiders' second stint in the Bay Area will officially be done, closing another chapter in the franchise's long and discrepant history.