Jeremiyah Love says ankle issues have prevented him from feeling like his best self

TEMPE — Arizona Cardinals running back Jeremiyah Love said his nagging ankle issues have impacted him “quite a bit” this season.

After missing a couple of weeks, his hope is that he will feel more like himself on the field, starting Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys.

Love was the No. 3 overall pick, the highest-selected running back since Saquon Barkley in 2018. With that draft status, there are superstar expectations, but this season has been a grind so far.

After an ankle injury kept him out for the final two preseason games, Love explained he sprained his other ankle in Week 2 against the Seattle Seahawks.

Love said it did not bother him too much in Week 3, but the issue lingered and nagged at him through Week 5. He gained 85 yards on 26 carries with one catch over his previous two games played, and the team opted to make a change.

“I ain’t myself when I don’t have my ankles,” Love said on Friday. “I feel like as a running back or as a receiver, a lot of the moves that we do, we do with our ankles and knees and stuff like that. I like to come to complete stops and use my ankles a lot. So if your ankles ain’t right, you ain’t gonna be able to do that. So, it impacted me quite a bit. I think that’s why they allowed me to rest for a little bit.”

Love said he could have continued to play through it at 70% or so. But he was limited, not feeling like the explosive athlete who was a Heisman Trophy finalist and Doak Walker Award winner.

So as hard as it was to take a step back — Love never missed a game at Notre Dame — this was seen as the solution to get the best version of the rookie moving forward.

“I just wanna go out there and be myself,” Love said. “I feel like the past few games, or really the whole season, I haven’t really been able to go out there and feel like myself. I haven’t felt like Jeremiyah Love as the people see. As myself, I just feel like I just can’t, or I couldn’t go out there and just do what I want to do.

“You ain’t seen me hurdle nobody, you ain’t seen me spin move, you ain’t seen me do none of this stuff. So that was kind of frustrating, but it is what it was. I got some time to rest, and now I’m back up and I’m just excited to go out there and just help my team. I just want to do my job.”

Love was upgraded to a full participant in practice on Friday. The Cardinals could use some juice on offense, as they have struggled to punch the ball into the end zone over the past two games (one touchdown in nine red zone trips).

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