Does Izzy Abanikanda Still Have Shot to Make Jets Roster?

[Rolloffjet]

Nope (practice squad)

@JoeWillieNamath

[#27TheDominator]

1 hour ago, ARodJetsFan said:

You're right, speed isn't the MOST important thing for a RB, but it's definitely a top 3 quality you'd look for in a RB, IMHO.

That said, I think vision is the most important thing, being able to read blocks and hit holes with authority and sorry, but I haven't seen that from Izzy either, hence my remark about him running tentatively.

Yes, he was just a rookie last season & maybe he'll put it altogether this camp - but I'm not holding my breath.

Yeah.  Not sure why we are going back and forth here.  I am just saying he has speed and has demonstrated it.  In pads.  As I said, the tentative thing is an issue and that often comes with experience.  The whole Sparano "know and know you know" thing. 

Vision can be super important, but I think it is less important in the one-cut zone scheme they had been running.  That fit Abanikanda well, and Hall who is also a burner.  If they are truly transitioning, that might spell doom for him.  I think it is more likely that they intend for more of a split and Abanikanda will hopefully be the splash back while they try more power grind stuff with Allen.

There is no reason to be too hyped and sure about any of these guys.  They aren't high picks.  They all have potential, but haven't shown anything.  The new guys have a slight edge because the new shiny thing always has a bit more chance in the NFL and all things being equal. they have an extra year under team control.  It will be a long time before that decision has to be made and lots can happen.  Odds of all four backs coming through camp without injury?  Not great IMO.

[Joe W. Namath]

Izzy is rb2.

Accept it jet fans!!!!

[AFJF]

2 hours ago, Joe W. Namath said:

Izzy is rb2.

Accept it jet fans!!!!

I love Izzy and hope he sticks, but Braelon Allen is RB2 and Izzy is at best RB3.
 

[Beerfish]

Joe Douglas drafts a guy and people throw rose petals at his feet for the great draftee.

One year later the guy is suspect and the team does not seem to like him.

Joe drafts to more RBs, yay Joe!  Throw more rose petals at his feet for drafting the replacements to the bust you drafted last year!

[AFJF]

27 minutes ago, Beerfish said:

Joe Douglas drafts a guy and people throw rose petals at his feet for the great draftee.

One year later the guy is not suspect and the team doe snot seem to like him.

Joe drafts to more RBs, yay Joe!  Throw more rose petals at his feet for drafting the replacements to the bust you drafted last year!

When fans hate a guy he can do no right.

Draft picks will fail more often than succeed.  Every GM will have misses, but haters will pretend NFL hit rate is somewhere around 98.7% outside of said hated GM.

GM has two options if he's a miss.

1) Hold on to player too long.

2) Replace player ASAP.

If he takes option 1, hating fan will say he didn't have the guts to admit he was wrong so he's a failure/coward and should have moved on sooner.

If he takes option 2, he sucks because he drafted a guy who he was forced to give up on right away.

And this is all assuming his haters are  right and they've given up on Izzy which may not be the case.

[Beerfish]

1 minute ago, AFJF said:

When fans hate a guy he can do no right.

Draft picks will fail more often than succeed.  Every GM will have misses, but haters will pretend NFL hit rate is somewhere around 98.7% outside of said hated GM.

GM has two options if he's a miss.

1) Hold on to player too long.

2) Replace player ASAP.

If he takes option 1, hating fan will say he didn't have the guts to admit he was wrong so he's a failure/coward and should have moved on sooner.

If he takes option 2, he sucks because he drafted a guy who he was forced to give up on right away.

And this is all assuming his haters are  right and they've given up on Izzy which may not be the case.

As a GM you are judged on your hits and misses, you can smooth over the misses if you have some big hits that are not high picks.

Douglas has totally whiffed on way too many picks after round 2 and has not hit home runs that often,  Micheal carter nickel back may be the only one.

[AFJF]

17 hours ago, Beerfish said:

As a GM you are judged on your hits and misses, you can smooth over the misses if you have some big hits that are not high picks.

Douglas has totally whiffed on way too many picks after round 2 and has not hit home runs that often,  Micheal carter nickel back may be the only one.

The haters used to say outside of round 1 but I guess now that Breece and Tippmann look to be hits we'll move the goal posts to fit the narrative.  And the only thing that stopped Elijah Moore from being a hit is the fact that he turned out to be an a-hole off the field but a solid player on it.

And I know it's cool to write players off after their first training camp, but I still use the 3 year rule.

I'm also not on board with "If you're not a star, you're a bust" mentaility.  Finding day 3 guys who can be regular solid/rotational contributors is wholly acceptable if you understand just how often those guys wash out of the league within a year or two.

Douglas has been able to find good players who unfortunately had character issues or got outplayed by somebody at the same position or who the coaches failed to develop.

Let's take a look.

Braden Mann: A bust with the Jets who was the 8th ranked punter in the NFL just one year after moving on.  Player was good but coaches were not.

Ashtyn Davis: Struggled early but was one of the most improved players on defense last year.  Let's see if that holds up with more reps this season.  May be a bust, may be a hit.

Brandin Echols: A solid depth piece at critical position.  Did a nice job filling in last year.  Perfectly fine from a round six pick.

Jason Pinnock: Fifth rounder who flashed as a rookie but was let go to make room for Tony Adams who the team liked better.  Both Adams and Pinnock are now starters.  

Michael Carter:  A top nickel taken in round five.

Jamien Sherwood: Fifth-round pick and possible heir apparent to CJ Mosely.  Has improved every single year since being drafted and did fine when called upon last season.

Michael Carter: Sent packing the day after a players only meeting which tells us he spoke up and said something that didn't go over well.  In all honestly he probably complained about having to sit behind 2 YPC Dalvin Cook.  He'll be a 4+ yard per carry back for as long as he gets some run.  Not a superstar, but will be a solid round 4 contributor.

Michael Clemons: Fourth-round rotational D-lineman.  Nothing special up to this point but worthy of a roster spot on a very good defense.

Max Mitchell: Nobody knows what he is at this point.  Outplayed his draft slot as  a rookie and fell apart in year two.  This season will determine whether or not he's an NFL player.  If I had to guess I'd say he's not.

Jason Brownlee and Xavier Gipson: Both UDFA's who made the roster last season but had limited production.  Was that because they can't play or because the entire offense was a disaster?  We'll find out this season but I'm not writing either guy off just yet.

And we've still got to wait on Carter Warren, Izzy, Barnes, Jarrick Bernard-Converse, Zack Kuntz, Jaylen Key, Qwan'tezz Stiggers, Isaiah Davis, Jordan Travis, Braelon Allen and Malachi Corley.

I fell pretty confident in saying several of those guys are going to be hits.





 

[bicketybam]

1 hour ago, Beerfish said:

Joe Douglas drafts a guy and people throw rose petals at his feet for the great draftee.

One year later the guy is not suspect and the team doe snot seem to like him.

Joe drafts to more RBs, yay Joe!  Throw more rose petals at his feet for drafting the replacements to the bust you drafted last year!

You don't like Garrett Wilson or Breece Hall?

[Bowles Movement]

On 7/10/2024 at 1:13 PM, slats said:

I think he’s a goner. If you’re gonna make the roster three or four deep on the RB depth chart, you need to produce on special teams. He might make it somewhere as a one cut runner, but his lack of versatility makes it a very uphill battle with the Jets. Allen’s already shown more as a receiver in one set of OTAs than Abanikanda showed all last season. 

All true but one preseason injury could really impact the depth chart

[Maynard13]

On 7/10/2024 at 11:07 AM, slimjasi said:

He has to have a big camp/preseason or he’s gone. 
 

The Jets drafting BOTH Allen and Davis was telling 

Has anyone told him 🤷🏻‍♂️

[slats]

On 7/11/2024 at 11:55 PM, Beerfish said:

Joe Douglas drafts a guy and people throw rose petals at his feet for the great draftee.

One year later the guy is suspect and the team does not seem to like him.

Joe drafts to more RBs, yay Joe!  Throw more rose petals at his feet for drafting the replacements to the bust you drafted last year!

I love when you criticize JD for the things every GM does. It’s so interesting and informative. There have been 61 RBs drafted in the last three years, plus I don’t know how many UDFAs. How many do you think are starters? Or will be on active rosters this year? Or even in the league? Every team churns those lower picks. 
 
Some brief stats about drafting RBs: 

Of the 207 players drafted 33 have become starters for half their careers. This gives an indication that there is a lot of Running Back By Committee (RBBC).

There is a very high bust rate for RBs. The first round gives you a 58% chance of finding a starter followed by 25% in the second, 16% in the third, 11% in the fourth, 9% in the fifth, 6% in the sixth and 0% in the 7th.

If you rank the rounds by the total RBs drafted you find that the greatest number are drafted in the 7th, followed by the 4th, 6th, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, and 5th. 
 
Jets have a top five RB, imho, in second rounder Breece. If he hits on just one of the guys he took with comp picks in the fourth and fifth rounds this year as solid depth, he’ll be way ahead. But again, this is what every team does. 
 
It would be fun if once in a while you compared what JD does to reality. 

[T0mShane]

I feel like we should see if the two new stiffs can produce a little bit when the pads are actually on. Pretty even odds that they all end up sucking sh*t and Douglas is surfing the waiver wire for an RB2 by week three of preseason.

[JiFtheOracle]

2 hours ago, slats said:

I love when you criticize JD for the things every GM does. It’s so interesting and informative. There have been 61 RBs drafted in the last three years, plus I don’t know how many UDFAs. How many do you think are starters? Or will be on active rosters this year? Or even in the league? Every team churns those lower picks. 
 
Some brief stats about drafting RBs: 

Of the 207 players drafted 33 have become starters for half their careers. This gives an indication that there is a lot of Running Back By Committee (RBBC).

There is a very high bust rate for RBs. The first round gives you a 58% chance of finding a starter followed by 25% in the second, 16% in the third, 11% in the fourth, 9% in the fifth, 6% in the sixth and 0% in the 7th.

If you rank the rounds by the total RBs drafted you find that the greatest number are drafted in the 7th, followed by the 4th, 6th, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, and 5th. 
 
Jets have a top five RB, imho, in second rounder Breece. If he hits on just one of the guys he took with comp picks in the fourth and fifth rounds this year as solid depth, he’ll be way ahead. But again, this is what every team does. 
 
It would be fun if once in a while you compared what JD does to reality. 

While this is all very true, it's also the exact reason you should never, ever, ever spend 2 draft picks on RB's in the same draft. 

[slats]

29 minutes ago, JustInFudge said:

While this is all very true, it's also the exact reason you should never, ever, ever spend 2 draft picks on RB's in the same draft. 

Every draft is different. For whatever reason, JD did not seem particularly interested in this one after Corley. I can’t get upset about any pick or position in the comp pick section of round 5. They’re all long shots at that point. If Davis were to turn out to be the better back than Allen, I think I’d even be happy about it. They mentioned the new KOR rules as a reason for the double-dip, while dumping Cook and MC1 and maybe being disappointed with Izzy could’ve also played a role. 

[T0mShane]

On 7/11/2024 at 6:30 PM, Beerfish said:

As a GM you are judged on your hits and misses, you can smooth over the misses if you have some big hits that are not high picks.

Douglas has totally whiffed on way too many picks after round 2 and has not hit home runs that often,  Micheal carter nickel back may be the only one.

The people opposing you on this are arguing that Douglas is actually a good car-builder because (other than the tires and steering wheel) the car he built probably works fine. Missing on literally every QB and OL acquisiton  for five years has been a death sentence for this franchise under his leadership.

[JiFtheOracle]

1 hour ago, slats said:

Every draft is different. For whatever reason, JD did not seem particularly interested in this one after Corley. I can’t get upset about any pick or position in the comp pick section of round 5. They’re all long shots at that point. If Davis were to turn out to be the better back than Allen, I think I’d even be happy about it. They mentioned the new KOR rules as a reason for the double-dip, while dumping Cook and MC1 and maybe being disappointed with Izzy could’ve also played a role. 

Every draft is different but yo peeps these stats on how many RB's miss every year....

 

 

[slats]

9 minutes ago, JustInFudge said:

Every draft is different but yo peeps these stats on how many RB's miss every year....

 

 

Yeah, but would that be an argument for or against drafting two if you see it as a position of need? 

[slats]

1 hour ago, T0mShane said:

The people opposing you on this are arguing that Douglas is actually a good car-builder because (other than the tires and steering wheel) the car he built probably works fine. Missing on literally every QB and OL acquisiton  for five years has been a death sentence for this franchise under his leadership.

Literally every. Okay. At QB, it’s pretty much been Zach, which sucks. But Aaron Rodgers hadn’t missed a start in the five years prior to his Jets debut. Tough to tack that on the GM. I was fine with the backup plan going in based on that. I figured the plan was for Zach not to play a snap, and they could talk for a year about how much better he looks this year in practice and how much he’s learning from Rodgers, etc., in an effort to resuscitate his trade value. Instead, he played. 
 
As for the OL, neither Becton nor AVT had injury issues in school. They hit the pros and both suffer season ending injuries in two out of three years? Meh, Becton, I wanted Wirfs, too, but AVT? He swung for the fences with Becton and missed. Robert Gallery <cough!> 

And I think everyone was pretty excited to have Laken Tomlinson join the team expecting top level guard play and getting garbage. Was anyone talking against that move at the time? I mean, probably @Rich Thornburgh, but he hates everybody.

QB play has been abysmal, there’s no denying that. Last year was a catastrophe. The OL, though, has been crushed by injuries. I don’t know if that’s the turf or the coaching or what, but that has to be figured out. But there’s no team in the league that has 14 different OL groups ready to go on opening day. Again, how much of that do you pin on the GM? 
 
Especially a GM who’s delivered Garrett Wilson, Sauce, JJ, and Breece. The CB group he brought in has been so good that the coaches have mostly abandoned their zone coverage roots. Breece being a top five back altered their RBBC plans. The defense is championship caliber and there’s an OL and weapons waiting for a competent QB. The last question left is how much better than competent can Aaron Rodgers be. Just like last year, I’m looking forward to seeing it. 

[MykePM]

On 7/11/2024 at 5:55 PM, Beerfish said:

Joe Douglas drafts a guy and people throw rose petals at his feet for the great draftee.

One year later the guy is suspect and the team does not seem to like him.

Joe drafts to more RBs, yay Joe!  Throw more rose petals at his feet for drafting the replacements to the bust you drafted last year!

Or:

Joe Douglas drafts a mid-round RB and Jets fans say “he’s got some potential, I hope he does well”.

One year later, the guy hasn’t panned out yet, as many mid-round picks don’t after one year, or ever.

Joe Douglas drafts a couple more mid-round RBs and Jets fans say “they have some potential, I hope they do well”.

[T0mShane]

33 minutes ago, slats said:

Literally every. Okay. At QB, it’s pretty much been Zach, which sucks. But Aaron Rodgers hadn’t missed a start in the five years prior to his Jets debut. Tough to tack that on the GM. I was fine with the backup plan going in based on that. I figured the plan was for Zach not to play a snap, and they could talk for a year about how much better he looks this year in practice and how much he’s learning from Rodgers, etc., in an effort to resuscitate his trade value. Instead, he played. 
 
As for the OL, neither Becton nor AVT had injury issues in school. They hit the pros and both suffer season ending injuries in two out of three years? Meh, Becton, I wanted Wirfs, too, but AVT? He swung for the fences with Becton and missed. Robert Gallery <cough!> 

And I think everyone was pretty excited to have Laken Tomlinson join the team expecting top level guard play and getting garbage. Was anyone talking against that move at the time? I mean, probably @Rich Thornburgh, but he hates everybody.

QB play has been abysmal, there’s no denying that. Last year was a catastrophe. The OL, though, has been crushed by injuries. I don’t know if that’s the turf or the coaching or what, but that has to be figured out. But there’s no team in the league that has 14 different OL groups ready to go on opening day. Again, how much of that do you pin on the GM? 
 
Especially a GM who’s delivered Garrett Wilson, Sauce, JJ, and Breece. The CB group he brought in has been so good that the coaches have mostly abandoned their zone coverage roots. Breece being a top five back altered their RBBC plans. The defense is championship caliber and there’s an OL and weapons waiting for a competent QB. The last question left is how much better than competent can Aaron Rodgers be. Just like last year, I’m looking forward to seeing it. 

Sure, we can slap asterisks on it and add qualifiers and whatnot, but when you do the accounting of The Douglas Era, the bottom line is that he failed to put together an OL and acquire a viable QB despite using plenty of resources in both areas. Luck is part of succeeding at GM, but maybe not as much as cutting losses when it’s clear that he’s taken the L. His backup plans to Becton being a disaster were uncommonly bad (Duane Brown at $11mm AAV? Max Mitchell?) and the Zach Wilson stuff—which I don’t think was entirely his fault—was damning to extremes. IMO, most guys who rise through the ranks to be a GM have the ability to identify decent-to-good picks in the top 15, but the job of GM is to manage the whole build, and the results just aren’t there because he did **** up the QB and OL management, even beyond the injuries. 

[Wit]

They treat RB's like disposable plates. One doesnt work out you draft another two until you hit. Rinse and repeat. 

[TuscanyTile2]

6 hours ago, slats said:

Every draft is different. For whatever reason, JD did not seem particularly interested in this one after Corley. I can’t get upset about any pick or position in the comp pick section of round 5. They’re all long shots at that point. If Davis were to turn out to be the better back than Allen, I think I’d even be happy about it. They mentioned the new KOR rules as a reason for the double-dip, while dumping Cook and MC1 and maybe being disappointed with Izzy could’ve also played a role. 

Disagree.  I think they're all exactly the same!   

[JoJoTownsell1]

On 7/11/2024 at 5:55 PM, Beerfish said:

Joe Douglas drafts a guy and people throw rose petals at his feet for the great draftee.

One year later the guy is suspect and the team does not seem to like him.

Joe drafts to more RBs, yay Joe!  Throw more rose petals at his feet for drafting the replacements to the bust you drafted last year!

JD drafted one of the top 2 talented RBs drafted by the Jets in their history. He should definitely apologize to the fanbase for not hitting on a 5th round RB. 

[Sperm Edwards]

20 hours ago, T0mShane said:

Sure, we can slap asterisks on it and add qualifiers and whatnot, but when you do the accounting of The Douglas Era, the bottom line is that he failed to put together an OL and acquire a viable QB despite using plenty of resources in both areas. Luck is part of succeeding at GM, but maybe not as much as cutting losses when it’s clear that he’s taken the L. His backup plans to Becton being a disaster were uncommonly bad (Duane Brown at $11mm AAV? Max Mitchell?) and the Zach Wilson stuff—which I don’t think was entirely his fault—was damning to extremes. IMO, most guys who rise through the ranks to be a GM have the ability to identify decent-to-good picks in the top 15, but the job of GM is to manage the whole build, and the results just aren’t there because he did **** up the QB and OL management, even beyond the injuries. 

Well it's not really true, though, that he's had no OL hits. 

I hated the initial Fant pickup. Not even because of the player, but the idea of paying this career backup $9MM/year and guaranteeing 1.5 yrs of that deal. He ended up ok (just ok) that year. Then the next year he was among the more efficient pass blocking LTs in football somehow, despite the dope he had to block for not exactly being Brady getting the ball out in 2 seconds (and running around who knew where). Then the year after that he was never really right physically until the very latter part of the season, and didn't look like much again.

Opposite Fant, in y2, he'd added Moses. Moses was fine - he was thought of far higher than his performance warranted, but again blocking for bad QBs who are looking downfield is a tall order.

The problem is he was faced with a situation, after 2021, that no one changes as GM:

With Fant, Saleh did what we'd want any HC to do, which is to not simply hand the LT job back to Becton. No one dumps upper 1st round pick Becton after 1 good rookie season at LT and then 1 missed soph season; nor do they demote him to swing tackle so they could re-sign/guaranteed-start a just-ok Moses in his early 30s, whose re-signing condition was guaranteed-starting more than an extra million or two. 

So he did what every GM in the league, without exception, would've done in that situation and went with his own #11 pick - still under contract for two more years, plus a 5th year option after that - when no one was yet calling that player a bust. Then after the first couple waves of FA pass (including Moses), rumors circulate that Becton got up over 400 pounds and wouldn't come up to NY to train, using the excuse that within the month his kid was due to be born; then he went on to miss the whole next season again, while Moses does his usual of playing every snap. It happens. If you're the Jets. 

It's also worth noting there was more than 90% approval on this site for extending Fant with a massive pay raise after the 2021 season, sympathetic one and all to Fant's publicly vented displeasure with not having his contract augmented/bumped. Six months later those fans/posters one and all pretended their armchair GM transaction to "pay the man" never happened -- it's a luxury all of us armchair GMs have: 99% of would-be whiffs get forgotten & we never pay the price for them because we never actually did the transactions to get them, but a GM has to make this concrete decision and is (rightly) judged on it with no do-over to take the other guy he was coin-tossing with the one he did sign. He opted to not extend Fant at $15-20MM/year and the decision proved correct even before the next Jets game. 

The Becton over Wirfs really set the stage for a lot of the OL stuff. It's one decision, but it's had a tremendous domino effect of poor tackle play (again, outside 2021 when Becton didn't even play). AVT is a player I'm sure I would've drafted in the right spot, but I'm even more sure I never would've traded a pair of day-2 picks to move up in the middle of round 1 to draft a guard in a deep OL-rich draft. Douglas wouldn't be the first newly-hired GM to sink such resources into swings for the fences because he fancies himself too astute, and playing moneyball with hedge picks is for mere mortals, so he ends up with Becton, Mims, Zach, and AVT. Three of them disappointed heavily on the field, and the fourth disappointed in that he's not on the field enough. 

He wanted to bring in Duane Brown, but surely at far less and there's a good chance that would've happened. Becton going on IR in August submarined that attempt. Further, if you play butterfly effect, maybe then a later-signed Brown doesn't injure his shoulder in preseason & have it linger all year either. 

Despite it all, it's more than fair to judge him on results not some fair thoughts behind results that didn't pan out if this or that guy didn't get injured. It's not like this team has just been a Wirfs away from the super bowl. 

[JKlecko]

On 7/10/2024 at 10:56 AM, BigRy56 said:

Feels like the answer is no here. The Jets are clearly transitioning to a power run football team this season and I don’t know if Izzy fits that mold. I think he’ll be a practice squad guy and get a shot maybe if injuries hit 

With the addition of Allen and Davis, it does seem as if the Jets are transitioning to a power run football team, but if that's the case, then why did they take Fashanu over Fuaga.  Maybe they viewed their need for a blindside protector for Rodgers as being more important than having a mauler in the run game.  Of course, Breece has speed and power, and Allen is pretty fast for his size, but having a HR threat like Izzy could be a real weapon.  I think it would be a mistake to go solely with more of a power rushing attack.  That limits them somewhat, but also limits what opposing Ds have to worry about.

With Izzy as the #3, the Jets would have a great way of attacking opposing Ds.  They could use two RB offense, and the opposing D wouldn't know which, if either, was going to get the ball.  This would help keep the offense from being so predictable and keep the opposing D more off balance.  Also, depending upon the team they're playing, if the team has bigger, slower defensemen geared to stopping the run, Breece and Izzy could really wear them out.  If it's a lighter, faster D, then Breece and Davis could pound on them and slow them down, and then Izzy and Breece could break off a lot of long runs.  I don't see how they could keep all 4 on the roster, however, and I'm not counting Cohen out.

There's really going to be a battle in TC for the #3 RB spot and for the KR/PR job.

[JKlecko]

On 7/11/2024 at 6:30 PM, Beerfish said:

As a GM you are judged on your hits and misses, you can smooth over the misses if you have some big hits that are not high picks.

Douglas has totally whiffed on way too many picks after round 2 and has not hit home runs that often,  Micheal carter nickel back may be the only one.

I disagree with your analysis of JD.  I think he has done a better job than you claim.  In the 5th round and below, he has added Bryce Hall, Brandin Echols, Jason Pinnock, Jamien Sherwood, and a couple from this year (Stiggers and Key, and JBC from last year may make the team and contribute. Zaire Barnes also showed some flashes in TC and preseason last year.  In addition, he has added Huff, Adams, Gipson (who looked to be coming on in OTCs & mini-camp), Irvin Charles, and Zonovan Knight. Made great signings of Quincy Williams, JFM, Chazz Surratt. 

 

[JKlecko]

On 7/10/2024 at 4:46 PM, slats said:

Carrying four would be a lot. Is Abanikanda more worthy of a slot than Bawden? Does he bring more to the table as a runner than Davis, who you expect to play a lot of STs? Like I said, I think it’s an uphill battle for him. He’s not a receiving back, and he doesn’t contribute on specials. Breece is gonna be the bell cow, and Allen looks like he’s gonna pick up the scraps. They made moves this offseason that signal a shift to a power running game and more of a physical offense overall, and I’m not sure where he fits. 

I absolutely hated the Cook signing last year, but that only happened after they got a long look at Abanikanda and decided he wasn’t backup material. They dumped Cook last year and this year drafted two more backs. I don’t think they’re too impressed with him. 

Outside of perhaps his STs play, IMO Bawden is not worthy of a slot at all.  I would definitely give Izzy a slot over Bawden when it comes to potential to contribute on offense.

I do agree that it looks like they've decided that they don't like Abanikanda, be it his lack of ability as a receiver, vision, poor blocking/blitz pick up, poor work ethic, can't learn the offense, or whatever reason.  I hope that he will at least make the decision hard for them.