Aidan O'Connell attributes Raiders number change to Derek Carr

As if Raider Nation needed another reason to hate former head coach Josh McDaniels, get a load of this. When Aidan O'Connell was a rookie with the Silver and Black, he was told to wear the No. 4 jersey for them. Up until last season, it had been the number most closely associated with the former star quarterback of the Las Vegas Raiders, Derek Carr. What a clown move by their former head coach!

O'Connell has wisely opted to go with a different jersey number ahead of his second NFL season out of Purdue. He will be donning the No. 12 kit for the Raiders now. O'Connell touched on this and several other very important topics while appearing on his Raiders teammate Maxx Crosby's podcast, The Rush With Maxx Crosby. Carr may not be a Pro Football Hall of Famer, but he didn't deserve that crap.

Here is what O'Connell had to say on the matter while appearing on The Rush With Maxx Crosby.

“I just didn’t want to be four anymore. I didn’t pick four. I was actually nine and then Tyree [Wilson] wanted nine. So they gave nine to Tyree in the first week I was here, then they gave me four and as a rookie you just kind of do what you’re told, so I was cool with it. When the offseason came, it felt to me it was Derek’s number. He wore it for that long and he’s a franchise leader and all that stuff. It felt disrespectful, so I just wanted to give that back to him.”

Here is the entire episode of The Rush With Maxx Crosby featuring O'Connell on their YouTube page.

I have been a big fan of O'Connell's game for years. This makes me like what he is all about even more.

Aidan O'Connell switches to a more appropriate Raiders jersey number

Carr may not be the greatest quarterback in Raiders history, but he is certainly up there. He may never be held in as high regard as Rich Gannon, Daryle Lamonica, Jim Plunkett or Ken Stabler, but he is right there with them in the robust history of the Silver and Black. To give up Carr's No. 4 jersey to a rookie quarterback who didn't even want it in the first place says everything about McDaniels' ego.

While he will be duking it out with journeyman free agent Gardner Minshew II this season, I like O'Connell's chances at starting and winning games quite a bit for the Raiders. O'Connell has tremendous leadership accumen, throws an accurate ball and has complete command at the line of scrimmage. He is not a tremendous athlete, but he is a damn good quarterback, if I do say so myself.

For years, Carr was the perfect leader for this team, an overall good guy who provided a stabilizing presence amid perpetual chaos. At this time, the Raiders must lean on either the long lost son of Stabler in Minshew or the guy who used to wear Carr's jersey in O'Connell. To be honest, it will probably be some combination of the two. Don't look now, but the Raiders really have quite the pair.

As long as the team remains bought into head coach Antonio Pierce, the Raiders will be fun to watch.