The No. 0 jerseys will make a comeback to NFL in 2023. At the Annual League Meeting on Tuesday, the NFL team owners voted in favor of the proposal to make the jersey number available to all players excluding offensive and defensive linemen.
The proposal was submitted by the Philadelphia Eagles and received overwhelming support from the owners. It was also decided that punters and kickers will now be eligible to wear jerseys with numbers from No. 0 to No. 49 and from No.90 to No. 99.
According to Atlanta Falcons CEO Rich McKay, who is also the chairman of the NFL’s competition committee, the league welcomed the change as it gives teams more options when assigning numbers to players.
“I don’t think there was any discussion, and we voted. As someone who works for a team, we have real challenges in the number world right now,” McKay said. “This is one thing that could help us in that challenge, because we do have some players that tend to like the single digit. Numbers are more problematic than they’ve ever been, so this one had very little pushback.”
The NFL allowed No. 0 and No. 00 in its early days but were removed as an option after the league’s number standardization in 1973. The most recent player that wore the number was the New England Patriots linebacker Bryan Cox in 2001, although he was only allowed to do so during the preseason.
One of the first players to wear the number after the proposal was passed will be Jacksonville Jaguars’ wideout Calvin Ridley. He already announced his intention in a social media post.
