LA Chargers countdown to 2020: Best player to wear number 99

With 99 days until the LA Chargers’ first game of 2020, we bring you the best Charger to ever wear number 99.

Counting today, we have 99 days until we get to see the LA Chargers back in action as they open the 2020 season against the Cincinnati Bengals — that is, as long as everything goes as planned.

To countdown the 2020 season, we wanted to bring you the best player to ever wear the jersey number that coincides with the number of days until the Chargers are back in action.

We got this idea from our FanSided sister site, Just Blog Baby (boo, Raiders!), which they started yesterday. Since we are a day behind, we are counting down the days with today included, so not counting today, June 7, we are actually 98 days away.

LA Chargers’ greatest number 99 in team history: DE Lee Williams

Lee Williams was the sixth overall pick of the 1984 NFL Supplemental Draft. The 1984 Supplemental Draft was a one-off draft where teams could select players from the Canadian Football League and the United States Football League and had some pretty notable names (Steve Young was the first overall pick).

While three Hall of Famers were selected before Williams in the draft, the Chargers made a solid selection in Williams, who wound up playing seven seasons with the Chargers, all of which were great from his second to his seventh season.

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Williams was a two-time Pro Bowler during his tenure with the Chargers, both of which were the last two years of his career with the Bolts. He posted a combined 25 sacks in those two seasons, which was the seventh-most in the NFL.

He then went and played three seasons with the Houston Oilers before retiring from the NFL. Williams finished his career with 82.5 sacks, making him just one of 75 players since sacks were recorded in 1982 to finish with at least 80 career sacks.

Of those sacks, 65.5 came during his tenure with the Chargers, which is third all-time in franchise history behind Shaun Phillips and Leslie O’Neal.

Joey Bosa definitely could have threatened to be the best number 99 in team history but he not only does not have the overall numbers that Williams has, but he actually changed his number to 97. If Bosa stays in LA then he is well on his way to passing Williams on the franchise’s all-time sacks leaderboard.

Jerry Tillery now dons the number 99 and fans are hoping that he too can be an impact pass-rusher because his rookie season was pretty disappointing for the Chargers.