Cardinals must monitor Love’s workload in 2026
Michael Holley and Mike Florio explain why the Arizona Cardinals must carefully manage Jeremiyah Love's workload in 2026 so that the No. 3 overall pick remains healthy.
Video Transcript
All right, let's move on to more from the game.
Jeremiah Love, speaking of crappy reasoning, they gave him 14 touches last night.
He had 58 yards rushing on 11 carries.
Oh, and he's got an ankle injury.
Oh.
I mean, you gotta protect your asset.
This isn't a position that requires a ton of work to know if the guy can do the job when it counts, but man, he is running hard, he is running violently, he is the guy that we thought he was gonna be so far, but you gotta stay healthy.
And he's got an ankle injury that he wouldn't have had if he didn't have 14 touches last night, Michael Holley.
Oh, that's amazing to me.
Isn't that amazing?
That, a, a running back would have 14 carries in a game like this?
That blows my mind.
What are you doing?
I, I Okay, yo, cut those carries in half.
You know, he is And you can see, by the way he runs, he's just so talented.
Even on a, a carry You can see what he's seeing.
He doesn't need that much work.
You can see how dynamic he is.
You can see how fast he is, how strong he is.
I, I just It, it really boggles my mind, I'm serious, why you would give him 14 carries in that game.
In the, in the ru- the first run we showed, where he's, breaking out and he gets tackled near the sideline, that's a little too much traffic around that ankle.
That's a little too ma- like, too many people around the ankle a- and around the knees.
So come on, that's You wanna talk about what people wanna see?
People wanted to see it.
They didn't get a chance to see it.
They didn't get a chance to see Carson Beck for the second straight game last night.
So that's a guy people wanna see.
But people really wanna see Jeremiah Love, 'cause we saw, we saw him at Notre Dame.
We heard so much about him in the pre-draft process.
You wanna see him during the season.
If I'm a Cardinals fan, I don't need to see him in August.
See you in September, buddy.
He was the third overall pick in the draft, round one.
The second pick in round two, Chase Bisantus, guard for the Cardinals, he may be gone for the year with a knee injury.
Guy fell into the side of his leg.
It's just part of the risks of playing football.
All that traffic, all that clutter in the line play.
It's amazing it doesn't happen more often.
You see bodies falling all over the place.
But they're expecting and bracing for bad news as it relates to their second round pick.
And yeah, their third round pick, Carson Beck, did not play last night.
He's got some kind of mild, I think it's a rib thing.
No big deal.
He played well last week.
They're giving him some time off.
They're getting him healthy, and he's not gonna be playing week one.
It's gonna be Jacoby Brissett.
And Jacoby Brissett, look, I think he plays until they get to the point that they know that it's over.
So what, week five?
And then at some point we evaluate Carson Beck because the Cardinals, if you had to pick one team that was most likely to be the number one overall pick next year, which means the very worst team in the NFL this year, the Arizona Cardinals would be the on-paper favorite going into the season.
So even more likely they'll be the number one overall pick if they don't have Jeremiah Love because they're a little too reckless with this talent.
That's the downside of taking a running back high.
That's the downside of paying a lot of money to a running back.
It is a high-risk injury.
It's like the logging profession.
Those have the highest workers' compensation- premiums in all of American industry because they have the highest injury rate because guys have trees fall on them.
In the NFL, the trees are the ones taking you down and falling on your ankles and potentially injuring you.
So that was the Cardinals' side of it.
And yeah, the Cardinals won the game 27-14, but none of that matters.
Nobody cares about winning preseason games except John Harbaugh.
So, a- a- hey, and you know, they get their chance to start a winning streak, preseason winning streak.
But And I underst- I understand the reasoning for it.
I don't need a phone call today.
John's got better things to do.
I've got better things to do.
I don't wanna argue the point.
Some teams need to have that in their DNA.
Every game we play, we try to win.
I get it, but it doesn't matter that the Cardinals won last night, although it may be one of the few wins they have this year
