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Raiders fans take over Twitter with #DJaxToOakland movement

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Levi Damien

It's happening again. The Raider Nation is united for a cause and it is something to behold. ESPN's Chris Berman likes to quote the motto of his favorite team, when he says "Nobody circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills". Well, perhaps the Raiders should take on the motto "Nobody rallies like the Raider Nation."

The latest movement is the one to bring DeSean Jackson to the Raiders. The Pro Bowl receiver was released by the Eagles on Friday and the Raiders one of several teams vying to sign him.

Not only is he the number one receiver the Raiders need, but there are several ties to the team as well. He grew up in Los Angeles while the Raiders were there and attended games as a child. He played college ball at Cal Berkeley, just up the road from Oakland. And according to NFL.com's Ian Rapoport, Jackson is reported as having shown mutual interest in becoming a Raider since even before the Eagles released him and the Raiders inquired of his availability.

The hashtag #DJaxToOakland is seriously trending on Twitter and has been since it began Friday evening. As of Saturday morning, it had reached nearly 42,000 Tweets and was third in trending hashtags across all of Twitter.

This is reminiscent of a couple previous movements by Raiders fans.

Two years ago, when they heard Philip Wheeler could be an option for the team, they took to social media and sent a barrage of tweets to convince him how much he was wanted in Oakland. When he eventually signed, he mentioned the fan support as a major factor in his decision to sign.

The most recent was the rally to bring back Charles Woodson. That rally actually originated on Silver & Black Pride and quickly caught on across all social media outlets. The idea was to swarm Raiders headquarters so Woodson would arrive to the kind of fan fare that would send the message to Woodson and the Raiders that a reunion was very much what the fans wanted. The message was received and Woodson signed his deal that day, later emerging from Raiders headquarters the newest member of the team.

It continues to amaze myself as well as the rest of the sports world what the Raider Nation can accomplish when they are determined. And I'm sure after writing this, I'll quickly have to come back and revise the Tweet numbers.

UPDATE: About ten minutes after posting this, the #DJaxToOakland numbers went from 42k to 53k... three hours later it's at 72k... four hours in 81k... and counting