This offseason, O’Connell changed to the number 12, which prompted teammate Maxx Crosby to ask the young QB his reason behind the switch. Crosby thought it was a fondness for the number 12 – perhaps because of Tom Brady. But for O’Connell it was more about simply not wearing number four anymore. Something he said he never wanted in the first place.
“I was 12 for a little bit in little league. I just didn’t want to be 4 anymore,” said O’Connell on the latest episode of Crosby’s show ‘The Rush’. “I didn’t pick 4. I was actually 9 and then Tyree [Wilson] wanted 9 so they gave 9 to Tyree and that was like in the first week last year that I was here. And they gave me 4. And as a rookie it was just kinda you do what you’re told. So, I was cool with it, but then in the offseason, it felt to me that this is Derek’s number. He wore it for that long and he’s a franchise leader and all this stuff. It felt disrespectful, so I just wanted to kind of wanted to give that back to him.”
Last year when the Raiders gave Aidan O’Connell the number four, there were a few fans of Derek Carr who weren’t happy about that. Even as Carr wears number four for the Saints.
What we didn’t really know was how the rookie QB who had to wear it felt about it. Now we know.
You can understand, at very least, how O’Connell might feel a tad uncomfortable being asked to not only take over the starting job for the Raiders, but to do so literally with the same jersey number as the previous longtime starter. Even weirder than it was for those of us who have covered the team through Carr’s entire tenure with the team.