Jeremiyah Love to the Cardinals: Fantasy Football Fallout

With the third pick of the 2026 NFL Draft, the Arizona Cardinals made a bit of a shocking selection to bring in running back Jeremiyah Love. The former Notre Dame Doak Award winner was the first running back drafted in the first five picks since the Giants selected Saquon Barkley in 2018, and will join what is, for now, a crowded backfield. With the signing of Tyler Allgeier in free agency, the depth chart also consists of James Conner, Trey Benson, and Bam Knight, though there’s no question Love will be shooting up into the RB1 slot in no time.

Let’s take a look at what this expensive running back selection means for the fantasy football landscape.

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Jeremiyah Love’s Prospect Profile

Coming out of high school in the St. Louis area, Jeremiyah Love was a four-star recruit and the No. 2 overall recruit from the state of Missouri in 2023. Though he received offers from massive programs such as Michigan, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Oregon, and Penn State, Love settled on Notre Dame, where he was head coach Marcus Freeman’s second-highest recruit. Love played a moderate amount through the regular season schedule as a rookie (56 carries, 346 yards, six catches, 38 more) but would eventually get the start in that year’s Sun Bowl, as Notre Dame’s RB1, Audric Estime, opted out of the game to prepare for the NFL Draft.

His subsequent 15-carry, 51-total-yard performance (with a touchdown) in the team’s mammoth 40-8 win set up a sophomore season that saw him explode onto the scene.

His monstrous 2024 campaign saw him finish with 1,353 rushing-plus-passing yards, and by the time the 2025 offseason had rolled around, Love was already looked at as a first-round Draft prospect a full year in advance. While a handful of quarterback prospects either tumbled down pundits’ draft boards (or returned to school), Love only doubled down on his sophomore-year production to jump into the top-3 of this season’s actual Draft.

In addition to his continued usage in the passing game throughout his junior season, he proved that he could continue stringing together explosive rushes despite a heightened workload, reprising his very nice 6.9 YPA performance from a year earlier with 36 additional attempts. This is due in large part to his 63 explosive runs (12+ yards) over the last two years, including his 23 rushes of 15+ yards in 2025 alone. But that’s not to say he wasn’t able to grind things out on a play-to-play basis, either.

One of the many hilarious highlights of Jeremiyah Love pic.twitter.com/ZboXIZ9coO

— Joe DeLeone (@joedeleone) February 17, 2026

According to Rich Hribar, Love faced light boxes (six or fewer defenders) on 35.2% of his runs —the lowest rate in this class— yet averaged 9.1 YPA against those light boxes, the highest mark among early-round running backs over the last decade. But when things got more congested, he used his fantastic contact balance and pad leverage to bounce off would-be tacklers. When hit at or behind the line of scrimmage —typically labeled as “stuffed”— he forced a missed tackle 32.5% of the time, once again the highest in the class. Interestingly, Love credited former teammate Audric Estime for exemplifying how pad level can make it harder on the defense to drag you down; just one more tool in a powerful toolbelt.

Jeremiyah Love #NotreDame #2026NFLDraft



Power is often about timing and placement. Love's stiff arm of the DE is a good example. pic.twitter.com/mmaCpq1OhQ

— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) July 20, 2025

Explosives and down-to-down consistency are a fantastic baseline, but his receiving work is what should immediately push him into RB1 conversations in Year 1. His 1.82 yards per route run were the second highest in this class, and the combination of his pass-catching chops with his 1,372 rushing yards led to the first Doak Walker Award recipient in Notre Dame school history.

Jeremiyah Love: Skillset as a receiver



- Angles - Screens - Options - Wheels. The whole running back tree is open for Love to utilize.



- Provides a bevy of problems for defensive backs in open areas.



- Wouldn't be surprised if he hits 50 + receptions as a Rookie. pic.twitter.com/wKJSweVkcg

— AngeloFF (@angelo_fantasy) March 19, 2026

Now he’ll be tasked to use that full three-down workload in Arizona, where head coach Mike LaFleur and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett will try to cook up as many touches as possible for their third overall selection.

How Jeremiyah Love Fits With the Arizona Cardinals

Much like the first pick off the NFL Draft board, Love will be heading to his new team with fresh faces at the head coaching and offensive coordinator positions, so it’s a good sign that the coaching staff had an obvious hand in bringing him in. LaFleur (2021-2022) and Hackett (2023-2024) had unenviable stops as New York Jets offensive coordinators over the last half-decade, while Mike LaFleur went on to spend the following three seasons as the Los Angeles Rams’ OC, while Hackett spent last season as a defensive analyst for brother Matt LaFleur in Green Bay.

Over these most recent stints, neither coach has been opposed to loading up their No. 1 option with plenty of work in both the pass and run game. Back in the Hackett Jets days, Breece Hall averaged 18.3 opportunities (rush attempts + targets) a game, and over these past three years, Kyren Williams has averaged a massive 20.5 opportunities per game. At first glance, both of those backs had far less RB competition, but let’s not forget that New York took both Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis in the middle rounds of that 2024 season, while L.A. has grabbed Jarquez Hunter (fourth round) and Blake Corum (second round) over the last two years.

Those seem like forgettable names, but are we certain that the current Cardinals depth chart is filled with players who will box Love out of a fantasy-friendly workload? Love is already a complete back who can operate on all three downs —his 4.2% career pressure rate allowed was the best in this Draft class— so he can make quick friends with Jacoby Brissett/Gardner Minshew beyond emergency dump-offs. It’s hard to see him losing large swaths of work on a drive-by-drive basis.

Projecting the Arizona Cardinals Backfield in Fantasy Football

The elephant in the room here is someone who doesn’t even play on this team. Up north, in a different part of the desert, remains the ghost of Ashton Jeanty’s rookie season. With the sixth-overall selection in the 2025 NFL Draft, the Las Vegas Raiders grabbed the former Boise State running back to add to an offense that was ill-equipped to provide any sort of consistency. And even though it was an open secret that he would likely have issues running the ball behind an inferior offensive line —made all the worse when left tackle Kolton Miller went down for the season— fantasy managers were still selecting him in the back-end of the first round.

It’s an admittedly brutal datapoint, but certainly not one that should have us fading Jeremiyah Love as a fantasy target. And though it’s been a rough few years, there is also precedent in aiming for the first running back coming off NFL Draft boards.

Here’s how the first running back(s) taken in the NFL Draft have performed over the past decade. Disregarding Jonathon Brooks’ debut season in which he barely notched three games, every other option has finished as at least an RB2, six of which were a fantasy RB1. It’s no surprise that teams want to get their new weapons involved, especially when they spend the type of Draft capital that the Cardinals just spent on Love. If anything, the Jeanty situation could simply be providing us with an arbitrage opportunity. Particularly if the sticker shock of the 1.03 potentially pushes him down boards from pre-Draft expectations.

As mentioned, we’ve got a pretty loaded backfield here, but James Conner is entering his age-31 season, Trey Benson has 92 career carries, and there is no guarantee that they’re even both on this team come September. With that said, Tyler Allgeier just signed a two-year, $12M deal in free agency, and though this selection causes a massive blow to his workload, he’s still likely to operate in short-yardage and goal-line work, much like he did behind Bijan Robinson in Atlanta. The guy truly can’t catch a break, but that’s a conversation for a different day.

Love’s ultimate ceiling is capped by Allgeier and whomever the RB3 will be, but that shouldn’t scare us away from considering him a 300-touch, fringe RB1/RB2 with clear potential to put up massive weeks. As for Allgeier, Conner, and Benson, their short and long-term value in redraft and Dynasty leagues takes a huge dip, with Allgeier being the best bet to operate as a fantasy RB4.

Bottom Line

• Jeremiyah Love checks every box we look for in a modern fantasy running back, bringing a true three-down skill set into the league with top-five Draft capital to match. While the Cardinals’ backfield appears crowded on paper, history tells us that teams don’t spend this type of investment without a plan to feature their new weapon early and often.
• There may be some early friction in the form of short-yardage and goal-line work siphoned off by Tyler Allgeier, but Love’s ability to contribute in both phases of the game should keep his weekly touch floor intact. A 275–300 touch season is firmly in play, even if the scoring opportunities fluctuate.
• Love’s pre-Draft Underdog ADP currently sits around RB11, in the middle of the second round, and while the presence of multiple capable backs could push him down boards slightly, that may ultimately create a buying opportunity. At worst, he projects as a volume-driven RB2, but if the touchdowns break his way, he has a clear path to finishing as a fantasy RB1 as a rookie.