Basically the entire evaluation of what Isabella can bring on the field seems like wishful thinking with little evidence since he was drafted, right?
“Isabella brings an electrifying element to the team. He is a threat to score from anywhere on the field.”
“there may come a point when Coach Kingsbury can no longer keep Isabella on the bench”
I just haven’t seen any hint of this playing out in the NFL at all, it seems like total projection from his college days so far.
Yes, he’s behind talented and/or established players and yes, it can take some time for young WRs to develop and break out onto the scene. But Isabella has barely flashed at all so far. He had one long TD and one other big play as a rookie, and that’s it. On 9 catches that might seem like a good rate of big plays, but teams don’t usually hide guys that they think can regularly make plays like that—they don’t design plays to get him the ball in space, don’t deploy packages meant to work him into the gameplan, they don’t use him in 4-wide situations which you’d think he’d feast off of under Kingsbury, at least not yet, and shouldn’t he be able to handle that as a 2nd-year player?
It just seems to me like he’s been a supreme disappointment so far, but you talked about his talent and ability to effect an NFL offense in the most optimistic and inevitable of terms, as if the rookie draft where he was taken just happened and we haven’t seen him struggle for his entire career so far.
I think it’s good to have pet project guys like this who clearly have some potential and maybe more importantly, pedigree—John Ross is another one, who actually flashed way more in way less possible games due to injury. But it can’t be all rainbows and best case outcomes when talking about the player’s future, when so little has been showcased by the player—these NFL teams are invested in their young explosive players as well and have a vested interest in seeing that pedigree paid off, and yet here we are. That’s gotta be a red flag.