Oakland Raiders

Team: Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders jersey has evolved over the last five decades and yet at the same time has remained consistently recognizable. When the Raiders began in 1960 the players wore black, gold, and white. The Raiders’ jersey was black and gold, and their helmets were black streaked with a white stripe. In 1963, Al Davis, the Oakland Raiders’ new head coach and general manager, changed the Raiders’ color scheme slightly, eliminating the gold and replacing it with silver. He also introduced the Raiders’ silver helmets and replaced the white streak with a shield-like logo of a Raider’s head superimposed over two crossed swords and the name Raiders at the top. Tradition has it that the team emblem of a football helmet wearing pirate, complete with an eyepatch,  is modeled after actor Randolph Scott.

Since 1963, the Oakland Raider’s uniform has undergone minor modifications, but has essentially stayed the same. The players now wear silver helmets, and silver pants with either black or white Raiders’ jerseys. The Oakland Raiders’ black jerseys display silver numbers, and the Raiders’ white jerseys have black numbers. Originally, the white jerseys had silver numbers framed with black, but in 1964 the Raiders’ white jerseys’ numbers were changed to black numbers with a silver outline. In 1970, the team put players’ names on the back of the Raiders’ jerseys for the first time. They also temporarily switched back to using silver numbers, but this change was only for one year. In 1971, the Raiders’ jerseys once again displayed black numbers.

The Oakland Raiders made no changes to their uniform from 1971 until 1994. That year they wore replicas of the 1963 helmets and wore the silver numbers from the 1970  jerseys. On September 28, 2008, during Coach Lane Kiffin’s final game, the Oakland Raiders wore their white jerseys in a home game against the San Diego Chargers. Rumor has it that this unusual choice was because of intense heat. However, heat is not a satisfying answer to this Oakland Raider jersey mystery because the high that day in Oakland was only seventy two degrees Fahrenheit. The only other notable Raiders’ jersey change came in 2009 when the team celebrated their AFL history by joining in the AFL Legacy program and wearing Raiders’ jerseys from the 1960’s when competing with other former members of the AFL.

Today the silver, black, and white Oakland Raiders’ jerseys are hot collectables. An autographed Darren Mcfadden jersey number 20 can sell for more than a couple hundred dollars. A signed Jack Tatum jersey number 32 can retail for more than five hundred dollars, and an autographed Gene Upshaw jersey number 63 can easily sell for more than a thousand dollars.