Jeremiyah Love’s first preseason action for the Arizona Cardinals ended with an ankle injury, and the way the team handled his workload is already drawing questions.
Love had 14 first-half touches in Thursday’s 27-14 preseason win over the Las Vegas Raiders, then went down on the final play of his 24 offensive snaps. The rookie running back may now miss the start of the season, though the Cardinals are still hopeful he’ll be ready for Week 1. For now, his preseason work is likely done.
Head coach Mike LaFleur made it clear he wanted to get Love involved early, and he even said double-digit carries was the goal. That part makes sense on its own. Love hasn’t played in an NFL game yet, and the Cardinals wanted to see him get some real reps.
But the way those reps were distributed is where the decision gets shaky.
Love spent most of the game working with the second-team offense and facing Raiders backups. The Cardinals’ starters were only out there for one possession, a drive that lasted 11 snaps and ended in a touchdown. Love ran twice and caught a pass on that opening series, but the rest of his workload came in a much less controlled setting.
That matters in the preseason. Teams usually protect their top players from extended run against backups for a reason: the execution can get sloppy, and players trying to make the roster often play with extra urgency.
That’s when technique gets loose and risk goes up. On Love’s final snap, a Raiders linebacker tried to stop him short of the end zone and used questionable tackling technique, which is what hurt Love’s ankle.
If the Cardinals wanted to treat Love like a starter, the usage should have reflected that. A few touches against the Raiders, then more work when the starters were on the field longer against the Dallas Cowboys, would have been a cleaner way to build him up.
The bigger issue is the volume itself. Fourteen touches in less than a half put Love on a pace for nearly 30 touches in a full game.
Over a 17-game season, that would add up to more than 450 touches. That’s a massive load for any running back, let alone a rookie whose college high was 199 carries and 226 total touches last season.
It also raises a simple question: are the Cardinals really preparing Love for that kind of role when they have Tyler Allgeier and James Conner on the roster?
Maybe there will be games where the script calls for that kind of usage. But for a No. 3 pick making his preseason debut, that’s a heavy ask. If 400-plus touches is the plan, then the conversation changes completely, because that kind of workload can wear a rookie down fast.
Instead, the Cardinals gave him a big chunk of work in one preseason half, mostly against backups, and now they may be paying for it with missed practice time and a questionable Week 1 status. A more measured ramp-up - five to seven touches last week, then 10 to 15 this week, then more in the joint practice before the preseason finale - would have made a lot more sense.
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