Arizona Cardinals receive mixed NFL Draft grades for Jeremiyah Love pick
Arizona's selection of Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love was met with mixed reviews from the pundits. Here is a look at their grades.
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The Arizona Cardinals turned heads when they drafted a running back with the No. 3 overall pick, the highest a running back has been picked since the New York Giants took Saquon Barkley in 2018.
Arizona’s selection of Notre Dame’s Jeremiyah Love was met with mixed reviews from the pundits.
Here is a look at how the experts are grading the Cardinals’ first-round draft selection:
2026 NFL Draft first-round grades for Arizona Cardinals
NFL.com
Grade: A
The Cardinals eschewed their defensive needs to grab Love, a talented dual threat who lifts the rushing game and provides a great option out of the backfield as a receiver. His ability to score from anywhere on the field makes him worthy of a top-five selection.
FOX Sports
Grade: B+
Throw out the narrative about positional value. Love’s ability to immediately boost rookie coach Mike LaFleur’s offense justifies this selection. Frankly, GM Monti Ossenfort needed a slam dunk and Love should provide it. His creativity, elusiveness and breakaway speed have earned comparisons to NFL superstars like Saquon Barkley and Bijan Robinson from scouts traveling through South Bend for the past two years.
Critics, of course, have a point about the fact that drafting a running back this year comes with zero salary relief — something that typically occurs with rookies. Love could be the best running back in the NFL next year, but the Cardinals will already be paying him close to that, regardless.
The Athletic
Grade: B
There’s no disputing the talent — Love tops the entire draft in that area. There’s also no doubting the need — Arizona ranked 31st in total rushing last year. Love would improve any team with his rare blend of speed, quickness and fight, but … do the Cardinals have the team around him that will let those abilities shine? Would Arizona have been better off grabbing an edge rusher or an offensive lineman? We’ll see.
There’s no disputing the talent — Love tops the entire draft in that area. There’s also no doubting the need — Arizona ranked 31st in total rushing last year. Love would improve any team with his rare blend of speed, quickness and fight, but … do the Cardinals have the team around him that will let those abilities shine? Would Arizona have been better off grabbing an edge rusher or an offensive lineman? We’ll see.
CBS Sports
Grade: C+
Love is a special talent at the running back position and will immediately transform the Cardinals rushing attack. This grade isn’t an indictment of the caliber of player the Cardinals got, but the value for a team not built to contend without a quarterback. They’ll burn the most productive and cheap years for a player at a position with an already short career length.
USA Today Sports
Grade: C-
After all that speculation on a trade, Arizona stayed put and made Love the highest-drafted running back since Saquon Barkley in 2018. Love can truly be a game-breaker in the right setting. But the Cardinals might have an extremely difficult time getting a return on investment in him that would justify this pic. Love shatters the guaranteed pay for running backs with more than $50 million, meaning that extracting any surplus value on what should be a cost-controlled rookie deal will be extremely difficult. And as other highly drafted running backs have demonstrated, there’s only so much that even the most talented ball carriers can do to revolutionize a ground game that has troubles starting up front. With little certainty behind center and a significant weakness at right tackle, Love might find it hard to find any running space early in his career.
Yahoo Sports
Grade: D
This is not the player the Cardinals needed at this time. Love is an explosive running back who will make plays in space when he gets there, but this team just signed Tyler Allgeier and has so many holes to fill as they try to rebuild in the toughest division in the NFL. This just doesn’t seem like the right team for a luxury pick. Look at what just happened with Ashton Jeanty last year, even though he played well. This is a tough spot to take a running back.
Pro Football Focus staff
Grade: Average
The Cardinals don’t exactly have a thin running back room after restructuring James Conner’s contract to keep him in Arizona and adding Tyler Allgeier in free agency, but Love adds a different element with his home-run hitting ability. His 22 runs of 20-plus yards over the past two seasons ranked third among FBS running backs. The biggest question with this fit in Arizona is whether the team has the offensive infrastructure to allow Love to generate those explosive plays, given the number of outstanding questions on that side of the ball.
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Comments
7 Comments
John was talking about Marvin not will Johnson. Just FYI (unless i missed something).
You still feel that way about MHJ? Remember the grades for that pick? What a bust
The draft is over, which IMHO, makes Draft evaluations meaningless, since the Cardinals picks and non-picks in the 1st Round aren't going to change. I'm committed to rooting for Jeremiyah Love to kill it. Period... End Stop.