While we recognize the accomplishments of those player who were named to the 2025 NFL Pro Bowl roster — including Raiders DE Maxx Crosby and TE Brock Bowers — it’s important to also mentioned those who seemed deserving but didn’t get the call.
Every year there are players who earned a real shot at being named to the Pro Bowl, but who were left off the initial squad. For the Raiders, there were a couple players who can claim they deserved a spot on the team but were left off of it.
LB Robert Spillane
Zaire Franklin and Roquan Smith were named to the Pro Bowl at inside linebacker. But are they more deserving than Spillane? Let’s see…
Spillane is currently fourth in the AFC in combined tackles (142). Only Franklin (165), Jamien Sherwood (148), and Smith (144) have more. And his 10 tackles for loss matches that of Franklin and Sherwood and far more than Smith (four).
As for pass breakups, Spillane (seven) has them all beat.
So, if you’re looking at stats alone, Franklin deserved to get in over Spillane. No question. But perhaps not Smith. Take a look at their side-by-side stats.
| Stats | Robert Spillane | Roquan Smith |
| Games | 16 | 15 |
| Tackles | 142 | 144 |
| Solo tkls | 85 | 78 |
| Solo TPG | 5.3 | 5.2 |
| Run stops | 50 | 40 |
| TFL | 10 | 4 |
| Sacks | 2 | 1.5 |
| Int | 2 | 1 |
| PD | 7 | 4 |
| FF | 0 | 1 |
As you can see, the only stats where Smith is better than Spillane are combined tackles (144) and forced fumbles (1). And considering it’s a difference of two tackles and one forced fumble, that could change by next week.
But Smith was an All Pro in 2023 and got more Pro Bowl fan votes, so he made the team over Spillane.
P AJ Cole
This is a stretch. And I’ll be the first to tell you Cole didn’t quite punt at the level we have come to expect from him this season and Logan Cooke deserved to be named the AFC punter.
That being said, even a down season for Cole was pretty good. He finished second in the AFC in gross punt average (50.1) behind only Titans punter Ryan Stonehouse. But Stonehouse had a terrible net average of 38.4 (30th). Cole finished 6th in the AFC in net punt average (42.2). He’d be top five if not for Ramel Keyton touching his perfect punt last Sunday against the Saints to turn a coffin corner into a touchback.
That became his seventh touchback of the season and those are what hurt his average the most. And, of course, that game where he had two of his punts blocked because of poor communication by his personal protector.
These things are not really taken into consideration, though, and with Cole not being next up in several key punting statistics, hard to imagine him even being the next man up if it came to that.
