Building a Shedeur Sanders-level Pro Bowl roster

Long gone are the days of the Pro Bowl actually meaning something. It stinks, and it’s not because the entire thing has been bastardized. There are players like Puka Nacua, Jamhyr Gibbs, and Trey McBride who had seasons that deserve to be celebrated. Those guys are real Pro Bowlers… But that gets tainted when people like Shedeur Sanders are also on the Pro Bowl team. 

You know what? Screw it. If Sanders can be a Pro Bowler, then so can anyone! Let’s make our own Shedeur Sanders-level Pro Bowl team. They’re not great. Some of them aren’t even good… But apparently that’s what we’re doing these days. They’re just letting anyone in as long as they have a name that the NFL will think will draw eyes to a nonsensical flag football game and some mini games that go along with it. 

RB: Cam Skattebo, New York Giants

Could Cam Skattebo have been an actual Pro-Bowler if his foot didn’t fall off in Week 8? Maybe, but probably not. He was fun, but he wasn’t better than Bijan Robinson, Christian McCaffrey, or Jahmyr Gibbs. 

However, if one of those guys opted out of the Pro Bowl and they announced Skattebo was going to play, rehabbing his leg and all, you’d watch. You’d be a liar if you said you wouldn’t. 

Imagine a guy with no regard for his health playing flag football. That’s can’t-miss TV. 

FB: Alec Ingold, Miami Dolphins

There are other fullbacks in the NFL beyond just Kyle Juszczyk and Patrick Ricard. Alec Ingold just so happens to be on the Dolphins, so you never really think about him… but he does exist, and he’s good at what he does. 

Would he make a splash? Of course not, but that’s life when you get called to be a fullback.

WR: Xavier Legette, Carolina Panthers

It sure is looking a whole lot like the Panthers aren’t going to get the wide receiver they wanted when they picked Xavier Legette… However, he does one hell of an interview.

You can take any wide receiver off the Pro Bowl team as long as you replace them with Xavier Legette, and also have him mic’d up the entire time. The world needs more extreme South Carolina accent, even if it means Puka Nacua has to sit out. 

WR: Deebo Samuel, Washington Commanders

At the end of the season, Deebo Samuel looked genuinely uninterested in playing with Josh Johnson and finishing a bad season with the Commanders. It’s tough to blame him. 

He used to be awesome before he got a whole bunch of 49ers-overuse-related injuries. What’s the worst that could happen? He makes a mockery of the whole thing? Let the guy kickstart his retirement tour and play a little flag football with the fellas.

TE: Darnell Washington, Pittsburgh Steelers

Trey McBride, Brock Bowers, Jake Ferguson, Travis Kelce, blah blah blah. Those are the pretty boys.

There might not be another player in the NFL who looks more disgusting when they catch a ball than the 330-pound Darnell Washington, but there’s no one like him when he actually gets moving. 

Whether it be a relay race, a dodgeball game, or the actual flag football game… That’s the freak show that we need to see more of.

LT: Laremy Tunsil, Washington Commanders

Maybe we’re wrong about the whole thing, maybe the NFL put Sanders in the Pro-Bowl as some sort of apology for him dropping in the draft. If that’s the case, then they should toss Laremy Tunsil in the Pro Bowl as well. Sure, his whole gas mask/bong thing was 10 years ago, he was still picked 13th overall, and he’s been a Pro-Bowler five times in the past… But still.

LG: Jon Runyan Jr., New York Giants

There is definitely someone out there who is just a fan of Jon Runyan and his family. There’s also someone out there who would read Jon Runyan Jr. and think that it’s his dad. 

That’s two whole people who would watch some part of the Pro Bowl charade because they have weird priorities and/or have poor reading comprehension.

C: Cam Jurgens, Philadelphia Eagles

Okay, so Cam Jurgens is the actual Pro-Bowl center, which is crazy. You could count at least four running plays every single game that were blown up because Jurgens was terrible, and every single one of them was on first or second down. 

But, apparently, the people who choose Pro Bowlers just default to the Eagles’ center. For the past 10 years, that’s been a good move. Now? Not so much. 

RG: Mekhi Becton, Los Angeles Chargers

Is Mekhi Becton the most famous/infamous non-elite offensive lineman? He was a first-round pick by the Jets, largely because he’s a leviathan. He was bad and couldn’t get on the field. Went to the Eagles and immediately won a Super Bowl. Got paid by the Chargers, and stunk there. That’s the controversial character we need to be in a Tug-of-War.

RT: Jawaan Taylor, Kansas City Chiefs

Jawaan Taylor very well could be a top-10 offensive tackle in the NFL… But the dude absolutely hates following the rules. Out of everyone in the NFL, he had the eighth most penalties in 2025 (10), the second most in 2024 (16), and the most in 2023 (20). That’s the kind of talent that deserves a Bobo Pro Bowl nod.

DE: Jadeveon Clowney, Dallas Cowboys

Jadeveon Clowney just finished his 12th season in the NFL, and yet every season he’s talked about as one of those free agents who can give a team real and useful depth as a defensive end. He hasn’t been that kind of guy for a handful of years now.

However, if teams are fooled by that, the Pro Bowl probably could be too. Everyone, since he was drafted, has been chasing the ‘Ball don’t lie’ hit from when he was at South Carolina. 

DE: Joey Bosa, Buffalo Bills

This is the first Pro Bowl since 2019 that hasn’t had a Bosa brother in it. If Maxx Crosby or Will Anderson opted out and the NFL said, ‘We’re gonna give the spot to Joey Bosa purely out of respect for the family’s genes,’ you’d understand.  

DT: Kenny Clark, Dallas Cowboys

Leonard Williams is going to the Super Bowl, so he won’t be at the Pro Bowl. That leaves an opening on the NFC defense.

So far, the Cowboys are clearly losing the Micah Parsons trade. If Jerry Jones really wanted to change the narrative on the whole thing, he could probably make a call and get Kenny Clark to be the alternative defensive tackle and make everyone angry in the process.

DT: Calais Campbell, Arizona Cardinals

Calais Campbell just finished his 18th season in the NFL. There was a stretch of seven years (2014 to 2020) where he was one of the best DT/DEs in the league. Does history mean nothing to the Pro-Bowl voters? Let the guy play! 

OLB: Von Miller, Washington Commanders

There’s a decent chance that this year’s Super Bowl MVP ends up being a defensive player. What better way to honor that than to toss the last defensive Super Bowl MVP into the Pro Bowl? 

OLB: Abdul Carter, New York Giants

If we’re tossing rookies that underperformed even though they were highly-ranked draft prospects into the Pro Bowl, you almost have to put Abdul Carter into the mix. He was the favorite to be the Defensive Rookie of the Year before the season began (odds were around +240), and now he’s around +40000. 

ILB: Devin White, Las Vegas Raiders

Remember when Devin White picked off Patrick Mahomes and sealed a Super Bowl win with the Buccaneers in 2020? The Raiders sure did when they signed him in the offseason. 

He ended up having a sneaky-good season; he broke the franchise record for most tackles in a single season.

There would be nothing funnier than the linebacker on the worst defense in the league making it to the Pro Bowl because he broke a record… especially since he was able to break that record because no one else on the defense was any good.

CB: DaRon Bland, Dallas Cowboys

Good cornerbacks are hard to come by. Cornerbacks who were good for a season are a dime a dozen. That’s DaRon Bland. In 2023, he was the most productive cornerback in the world with nine interceptions and turning five of those into pick-sixes.

Quinyon Mitchell already withdrew from the Pro Bowl, and Nahshon Wright took his place. Wright is not a great cornerback, and Bland is not a great cornerback. It’s a match made in heaven.

CB: Marshon Lattimore, Washington Commanders

If you want people to watch the Pro Bowl flag football game, you need to add some drama to it. The best way to do that is to throw a firecracker in the middle of it. Marshon Lattimore is that firecracker. 

He’s as much of an instigator as we have in the NFL right now, and he seemingly always tries to start trouble with elite wide receivers… Give him what he wants; put him in a game with only elite wide receivers so he continues to get burnt, and get him into a padless fistfight.

S: C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Chicago Bears

If Lattimore’s instigation is at an instigation level of 10, C.J.G.J is nine. There’s a 1000% chance that he would get entirely too competitive, forget that the Pro Bowl is purely performative, and lay someone out. 

The hiccup here is that C.J.G.J. might be too good to make the Shedeur Sanders Pro Bowl team. 

S: Damar Hamlin, Buffalo Bills

You know that the NFL wants Damar Hamlin to be good more than anything in the world. He died on the field at the end of the 2022 season, and he’s received votes for Comeback Player of the Year every season since (including in the 2022 season, which was kind of weird). 

If they had the opportunity to toss him in the Pro Bowl without it being blatantly obvious that they were forcing his story to have a happy ending, they absolutely would.