At 5pm tonight (8pm ET) the NFL will announce the Pro Bowl rosters. Though, they don’t seem to put too much stock into fan voting, there were a few Raiders who finished among the top ten at their position.
Here they are in order of their landing spot in the voting both among the NFL and AFC:
| Pos | Player | NFL | AFC |
| DE | Maxx Crosby | 5 | 2 |
| P | AJ Cole | 3 | 2 |
| RB | Josh Jacobs | 10 | 6 |
The only AFC defensive end who got more votes than Maxx Crosby was Cleveland’s Myles Garrett.
Likewise, only one AFC punter got more votes than AJ Cole. That’s Jets’ punter Thomas Morstead.
The thing is, both Crosby and Cole have the player ahead of them in AFC voting beat in several statistical categories.
Garrett has only a half sack more (14) than Crosby (13.5) and three more QB hits (30). While Crosby leads the league in tackles for loss (21) and leads all edge rushers in combined tackles (88) — more than TWICE as many as Garrett (42). The two are tied for second in the AFC with 86 pressures. Only Jacksonville’s Josh Allen (88) has more.
Cole’s 50 yards per punt and 44.8 net yards per punt are both NFL bests for players with at least 55 punts and both better than Morstead’s numbers. And Cole leads the league in punts inside the 20 (33) among those with fewer than 80 punts. Morstead has the same number of punts inside the 20 despite getting 21 more opportunities than Cole (71).
Clearly, both Crosby and Cole deserve to start in the Pro Bowl at their respective positions.
Jacobs is having a down season and seems to be getting residual votes from having won the rushing title last season.