Aiden O’Connell switched jersey numbers because he feels it disrespects Derek Carr

Judge_Smails said

Recency bias is real.

Nothing against our guy Carr, but he is not even in the Raiders top-10 for QB win percentage all-time among starters.

Doesn’t mean he’s bad, just more similar to Steve DeBerg or Jim Hart, than the type of guy that they set aside a number for.

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I think it’s just a super-unique case where a guy was a starter in a place for a long time, did have good moments, made three Pro Bowls, finished third in MVP voting once, and certainly at least garnered the “Face of the franchise” label at one point. No he was not a legend, no he never won a playoff game, but he was the respected leader of that franchise for quite some time, and it is a very rare move for a player like his’ number to immediately be reissued to another random, unestablished player.

Like I said earlier, O’Connell seems to get that. It doesn’t mean #4 needs to be set aside forever; it just seems like a small slap in the face/deliberate type of slightly disrespectful act to immediate reissue it the very next year.

Unless they’re signing some “name brand” guy that wore the number before (like say for instance Dak was a free agent that went there), it is a very rare thing to see at that particular position when it involves a long time starter’s departure.