List of National Football League retired numbers

Teams in the National Football League (NFL) retire jersey numbers of players who either are considered by the team to have made significant contributions to that team's success, or who have experienced untimely deaths during their playing career. As with other leagues, once a team retires a player's jersey number, it never issues the number to any other player, unless the player or team explicitly allows it.

Since NFL teams began retiring numbers, 139 players have had their jersey number retired. The Chicago Bears have the most retired numbers of any team with 14. Only one player, Reggie White, has had their number retired by two teams. Three teams – the Oakland Raiders, the Atlanta Falcons, and the Dallas Cowboys – traditionally do not retire jersey numbers, and two others – the Washington Redskins and the Pittsburgh Steelers – only do so in extremely rare circumstances. Also without a retired jersey number are the Baltimore Ravens, the Houston Texans, and the Jacksonville Jaguars, although those teams are less than 25 years old (although some numbers have been placed out of circulation). The Raiders and Texans have a strict policy of not keeping a number out of circulation.

Unlike Major League Baseball (which retired Jackie Robinson's number) and the National Hockey League (which did so for Wayne Gretzky), the NFL has never retired a jersey number league-wide in honor of anyone. Numbers 0 and 00 are no longer allowed, but were not retired in honor of any particular player, since the NFL's positional numbering system, imposed in 1973, does not allocate a position for players wearing those numbers (the NFL allowed those numbers in the past; Johnny Olszewski, Obert Logan, Jim Otto and Ken Burrough all wore 0 or 00). The numbers can be, and rarely are, used in the preseason when no other numbers for a player's position are available.

Pending retirements
Key:

* - Player listed as honorable mention and was allowed to wear number after original retirement