The Green Bay Packers know that all eyes will be on them this season, specifically to see if this team can take the next step. After making the playoffs in back to back seasons, Green Bay is ready to show the NFL that they can compete for a Super Bowl.
As training camp kicks off, roster moves will be happening nearly every day. This time, however, Green Bay got a record setting running back from an NFC Rival.
Breaking: Packers Steal Record-Setting Star From NFC Rival (Report)
After just three practices, the Green Bay Packers have strengthened their backfield:
According to NFL insider Aaron Wilson, the Packers claimed third-year running back Israel Abanikanda off the waiver wire from the San Francisco 49ers on Friday, adding a former fifth-round draft selection and college football record-setter to their roster.
“Good opportunity for former @pittfootballfam running back #49ers Israel Abanikanda in Green Bay as he joins #Packers off waivers, per a league source,” Wilson wrote on X.
The Packers will have seven running backs signed to their 90-man camp roster once Abanikanda’s addition becomes official, but one of the backs contending for a reserve role with the team — undrafted rookie Amar Johnson — is on the active/non-football injury list and is ineligible to practice with the Packers until he passes his physical.
Abanikanda played in six games and rushed 20 times for 70 yards as a rookie for his original team, the New York Jets, in 2023. Despite making the roster in 2024, though, the Jets gave priority to rookies Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis behind Breece Hall and left him inactive for their first 12 games before putting him on waivers in December.
The 49ers claimed Abanikanda off waivers, but they did not play him down the stretch of the 2024 season. And while they kept him on their roster through the 2025 offseason — as his rookie deal runs through 2026 — they waived him two days into training camp.
Even still, Abanikanda has appeal to the Packers given how successful he was in college, especially with the No. 3 role in their backfield rotation unsettled at this stage of camp.
Abanikanda hasn’t found a meaningful role at the NFL level just yet, but there are signs that he still possesses untapped potential based on how he performed in college at Pitt.
After a quiet freshman season, Abanikanda seized a more consistent role in Pitt’s three-man rotation as a sophomore, taking 123 carries for 651 yards and seven touchdowns. It wasn’t until his 2022 junior season, though, that he took an astronomical leap forward.
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