Jeremiyah Love's first taste of NFL football came with a price. The Cardinals rookie, who Arizona took No. 3 overall out of Notre Dame this spring on a 4-year, $53 million deal, got banged up in Thursday night's preseason opener against the Raiders and now finds himself on the shelf.
Jeremiyah Love is a little banged up:
Field Yates was among the first to flag it, and the details trickled out from there. Love logged 23 snaps in his debut, carrying 11 times for 58 yards and hauling in 3 catches for 14 yards -- a solid, buzzy first look before the ankle started barking.
By Saturday, head coach Mike LaFleur confirmed what a lot of fans feared: Love is going to sit. LaFleur said the rookie was actually more sore Friday than he was right after the game Thursday, which is never the update you want to hear.
Adam Schefter followed up with the same top line -- at least a week out, sore ankle, injury coming out of Thursday's game against the Raiders -- and made clear the team plans to "revisit" his status once that week is up rather than commit to a hard return date.
More about Cardinals rookie running back Jeremiyah Love missing at least the next week to let a sore ankle that he injured in Thursday night’s preseason game against the Las Vegas Raiders heal, via @joshweinfuss: https://t.co/RpTiBTDqHx
It's worth remembering the context here: Love was already a rare bird as a top-3 running back pick, the highest a back has gone since Saquon Barkley went No. 2 to the Giants back in 2018. He'd also become one of the more popular Round 2 targets in early fantasy drafts off a Heisman-finalist final season at Notre Dame, so any missed practice time is going to spike some blood pressure in fantasy circles even if nobody in Arizona sounds panicked. This will sit out this week's game against Dallas, and until the Cardinals give a real update, the plan is simple: shut it down, let the ankle calm down, and see where things stand.