I am making an assumption. I assume that you mean the deployment. The deployment is responsible for individual pods. If a pod goes away, the deployment brings a new pod in. The deployment controls individual pods.
To answer your question: yes, you can simply create pods without the deployment. But then you are fully responsible for their lifecycle and failures. The deployment makes your life easier.
I am making an assumption. I assume that you mean the deployment. The deployment is responsible for individual pods. If a pod goes away, the deployment brings a new pod in. The deployment controls individual pods.
To answer your question: yes, you can simply create pods without the deployment. But then you are fully responsible for their lifecycle and failures. The deployment makes your life easier.