West Coast football fans will always know Aaron Rodgers as the California quarterback passed over by the San Francisco 49ers for Alex Smith. Lesser discussed about that draft day of 2005: The NFL team 11 miles down the road from Berkeley whiffed just as badly on its own Rodgers opportunity.

The Oakland Raiders had scouted Rodgers extensively, but they never brought him in for a visit. He had been to the Oakland Coliseum once, as a high school quarterback, to watch a game against San Diego.

After the 49ers took Smith at No. 1, then came Rodgers’ interminable green room wait America got to watch on ESPN.

When the Raiders traded with Seattle to move from No. 26 to No. 23, Rodgers had a thought.

“For a second, I was looking at my phone and wondering if it was going to ring at the 23rd pick,” he said this week by conference call. “But it never did.”

Instead, the Raiders selected speedy Nebraska cornerback Fabian Washington, the Green Bay Packers took Rodgers at No. 24 and the course of NFL quarterbacking history was changed forever.

The Packers could not be certain of it yet, but they had found the rare quarterback capable of replacing a legend. Rodgers, in his 11th season, has done for Green Bay what Steve Young did for the 49ers after trading Joe Montana.

The Chico, California, native leads the Packers (9-4) against the Raiders today at O.co Coliseum in a career likely headed for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Washington played six inglorious seasons — three for the Raiders and three for the Baltimore Ravens — and was out of football.

What followed that Raiders draft: A revolving door at quarterback that included 15 different starters in nine years.

As it turned out, unless Rodgers shaved about 0.5 seconds off his time or figured out a way to grow from 6 feet 2 to 6-5, he was not going to merit first-round consideration by Raiders owner Al Davis.

At a press conference in 2011 following the hiring of Hue Jackson as the Raiders’ head coach, Davis said of Rodgers at the post-conference gathering at his table, “Sure, I regret not drafting him … he’s a good player.”

The media opportunity ended shortly afterward, with Davis never elaborating on the subject before his death less than a year later. But Davis, according to former Raiders CEO and CBS analyst Amy Trask, had his regrets.

“I enjoyed several very interesting conversations with Al about our missed opportunity,” Trask said. “As was most often the case, Al peppered his observations with expletives and he very honestly agreed that we missed. That underscores something I’ve longed believed: The draft is not a science.”

Davis was long known to favor “measurables,” seeking the biggest, strongest and fastest players. Rodgers, for consideration as a first-round pick, did not measure up in the most basic way possible. At 6-2, he was not tall enough.

“He (Davis) liked Aaron,” Kebric said. “But he kept talking about the height.”

What Davis loved was speed, and Washington, one of the top corners in the Big 12, clocked a combine-best 4.29 in the 40-yard dash.

Kebric said the consensus in the draft room among the scouting department was to take Rodgers, whom the Raiders had rated as the only quarterback worthy of the first round — including Smith.

Whether Rodgers could have transformed the Raiders will remain a barroom debate.

“We will never know that,” Trask said. “Certainly Green Bay did everything right in terms of best positioning Aaron for success.”

Former Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon was more direct.

“Had he gone to Oakland, he never would have had the success he’s had. No way,” Gannon said. “As much as I like Aaron, you look at Alex Smith in San Francisco, how did that work out? Six coordinators, different coaches. The same thing would have happened to Aaron in Oakland.”

In the end, Gannon believes the phone staying silent at No. 23 was the best thing that could have happened to Rodgers.

“He got to watch and learn behind Brett Favre,” Gannon said. “He got the chance to be trained by Mike McCarthy, one of the best trainers of quarterbacks in the game. That wouldn’t have happened in Oakland.”