Four weeks, 13 practices and two River Ridge grass fields later, Brian Schottenheimer finally put names to the players who made training camp worth watching. And right there among the 10 standouts was Israel Abanikanda, a running back who spent California making enough noise to earn a spot in the head coach’s final roundup.
That matters. This was not a casual throwaway mention in passing. Schottenheimer was in no mood to be stingy on Thursday morning at his final news conference from the California portion of camp, and when he started listing the players who exceeded expectations, Abanikanda was part of the group. For a player fighting for relevance in a crowded Dallas Cowboys backfield, that is the kind of public nod that can keep a roster battle alive a little longer.
Why Abanikanda's camp work stood out
The headline version is simple: Abanikanda looked like one of Dallas’ top three backs in camp. That is a meaningful judgment in a setting where every practice rep can change a depth chart, and where standing out for one day is easy but standing out for four weeks is something else entirely.
The broader camp review was built around players who outperformed what was expected of them, and Schottenheimer made clear that the list was not limited to the obvious names. He praised the camp as a whole, said he was very pleased with how it was going, and kept returning to the same theme: there had been a ton of guys who stood out. Abanikanda was one of them, which says plenty about how he handled the work in California.
That does not mean the roster question is suddenly settled. Far from it. A positive camp mention is not a roster spot. It is not a guarantee of carries, and it certainly is not a promise that a player has climbed out of the margin. But it does mean Abanikanda did what every fringe back has to do in August: force the coaching staff to pay attention.
And that is no small thing in Dallas, where the standards are high and the patience is short. Schottenheimer’s final camp evaluation was built on the players who kept showing up, kept competing and kept making life easier for the staff. Abanikanda appears to have done enough to be part of that conversation. If nothing else, he made the trip to California count.
The final verdict is still to come, and the roster math may yet leave him on the outside. But when a head coach names 10 players who exceeded expectations and Israel Abanikanda is one of them, it tells you the same thing loud and clear: he was noticed, he was trusted, and he was better than expected. In a camp like this, that is how the fight starts.
