Jets rookie Israel Abanikanda and other running backs proving their worth
Jets running back Israel Abanikanda (25) is hit by the Carolina Panthers during the first half of an NFL preseason football game, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023, in Charlotte, N.C. Credit: AP/Erik Verduzco
Israel Abanikanda wouldn’t let the officials take away his first NFL touchdown.
“I still believe I scored,” the rookie running back said after the Jets’ 27-0 win over the Panthers on Saturday in which he initially was given credit for a 27-yard touchdown run that, upon further review, was ruled a 26-yard run to the 1 that set up a score by someone else. “They say I had my knee down but I feel like I had the ball across the line.”
Not that it matters, really. The Jets scored anyway and Abanikanda isn’t trying to accrue fantasy points for anyone right now. He’s just trying to prove his assets to the team that drafted him in the fifth round in April, to show that he can handle the jobs the Jets give him.
All of the active running backs on the Jets are doing the same. And as they function through this summer in the shadow of some bigger names with better pedigrees, they’re managing to do it.
Abanikanda ran for 56 yards and caught three passes for 31, Michael Carter had four carries for 19 yards and two catches for 34, and Bam Knight had four carries for 13 yards. As the Jets wait for the return of Breece Hall — it’s been about two weeks since Robert Saleh said it would be two to three weeks before he would be taken off PUP and return to practice from ACL surgery — and hover around free agent Dalvin Cook, the backs they have available are trying to prove that the three of them are plenty.
Saturday’s performances went a long way toward that.
“They ran hard,” Saleh said. “Michael, he feels like he is damn near back. I know he was frustrated from his second season, but one thing you can count on from him is to make the first guy miss and just churn out those 4-, 5-, 6-yard runs. He [Carter] did a really nice job [Saturday] making that first guy miss and looking like who he is.”
“It felt good,” Carter said. “It doesn’t matter what kind of season it is, it just felt good to be out there.”
While the refs technically took away Abanikanda’s touchdown, they couldn’t touch the spin move he put on the Panthers' secondary on that run. Neither could the Panthers.
“I heard him say ‘Oh, [expletive]!’ so I guess it was good,” he said of safety Jammie Robinson’s commentary while whiffing on a tackle. “It’s instant. When I saw him coming down, my body just turned.”
Was it something he planned?
“That’s been there,” Abanikanda said. “It was just locked in the box.”
On Saturday, it came out. Maybe all the running backs themselves did a little bit, too.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
