UCLA Football Alumni Matthew Slater, Kenny Clark Earn NFL Pro Bowl Bids
The Bruins will have representation at the Pro Bowl for the 13th season in a row.
The NFL released the full Pro Bowl rosters for the AFC and NFC on Wednesday night, with 44 players earning enough fan votes to secure the individual honor. Two UCLA football alumni were among those announced Wednesday, with New England Patriots special teamer Matthew Slater locking down a spot in the AFC and Green Bay Packers defensive lineman Kenny Clark earning one in the NFC.
For Slater, this is his 10th Pro Bowl appearance, getting the most votes among gunners and special teamers in the AFC every season besides 2018 since 2011. Clark has now earned his second career Pro Bowl bid, doing so for the first time back in 2019.
Slater is now one of 41 players in NFL history to have made 10 or more Pro Bowls, and he is tied for second with Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers for the most career appearances among active players only behind Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady. Slater stands alone with the most Pro Bowl appearances by a special teams player.
Through 14 games this fall, Slater has nine tackles, putting him on pace for his most in a single season since 2015. He has spent his entire professional career with the Patriots after getting picked by them in the fifth round of the 2008 NFL Draft.
Slater arrived at UCLA in 2003, redshirting as a freshman and playing mostly as a reserve amid injuries in 2004 and 2005. By the time his redshirt junior season came around, Slater stepped up as the Bruins' leading kick returner and kick coverage man. 2007 was Slater's breakout year, earning All-Pac-10 First Team honors as a kick returner after setting a school record with 986 return yards for the season and also racked up 25 tackles.
A decade after Slater, Clark arrived in Westwood as one of the hidden gems of a 2013 recruiting class that also included Myles Jack, Eddie Vanderdoes, Kylie Fitts, Priest Willis and Jayon Johnson. Clark was a member of the All-Pac-12 Second Team as a sophomore and the First Team as a junior, accumulating 130 tackles, 16.0 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks across those two seasons alone.
The Packers selected Clark with the 27th pick of the 2016 NFL Draft, and he was a starter for them before the end of his rookie year. Entering this season, Clark had 140 tackles, 27.0 tackles for loss, 18.5 sacks and four forced fumbles in 73 career appearances.
Clark has gotten past the line of scrimmage more in the 13 games he's played so far in 2021 than he has in any of his previous five seasons in the NFL, already notching a career-high 13 quarterback hits to go along with 4.0 sacks and 7.0 tackles for loss.
The Patriots are currently the No. 2 seed in the AFC, sitting at 9-5, while the Packers are 11-3 and own the No. 1 seed in the NFC. Should either team make the Super Bowl comes February, Slater or Clark would be replaced on the Pro Bowl roster.
Among the former Bruins who did not earn enough love from fans to make the Pro Bowl this year are Jacksonville Jaguars linebacker Myles Jack and Minnesota Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks.
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