'This is probably gonna be the longest year of my life': Cardinals rookie RB Jeremiyah Love explains reduced workload in Week 4 loss to Giants

Arizona Cardinals running back Jeremiyah Love. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

'This is probably gonna be the longest year of my life': Cardinals rookie RB Jeremiyah Love explains reduced workload in Week 4 loss to Giants

By Clark Dalton | Last updated Oct 5, 2026 1:02 PM ET

Arizona Cardinals running back Jeremiyah Love has already hit the rookie wall.

After logging a season-high 21 carries and 90 rushing yards in a 36-30 Week 3 road loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Love carried the rock 14 times for 63 yards in a 36-24 Week 4 road loss to the New York Giants. In a postgame news conference, the RB said the team reduced his workload to help him combat fatigue.

Jeremiyah Love explains reduced workload

"My body is sometimes down," Love said. "Sometimes tired. So it's just managing those things. And coaches know that. This is probably gonna be the longest year of my life. I just want to manage that workload. So today, just obviously making sure to keep an eye on managing me. But I didn't go out there, hurt anything or anything like that. They're doing what they need to do to keep me up so that I can finish the season."

Love suffered a left ankle injury in preseason. He insisted that it's no longer an issue but acknowledged he hasn't looked like the difference-maker the Cardinals thought they were getting when they selected him No. 3 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft.

“This is probably gonna be the longest year of my life.”

Jeremiyah Love pic.twitter.com/vllDlh6xz3
— PHNX Cardinals (@PHNX_Cardinals) October 4, 2026

In his final season with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Love won the 2025 Doak Walker Award as the best RB in college football after averaging 114.3 rushing yards per game in 12 contests. Through four games in Arizona, that number has dipped to 55.8 rushing yards per game.

"I'm really frustrated with myself because I just want to be good," Love said (h/t ESPN's Josh Weinfuss). "I want to be 100 percent and I want to go out there and do what I need to do. Not saying I'm not 100 percent, but I'm not where I want to be. I'm not able to go out there and do spectacular plays every single time or stuff like that. So, just frustrated with myself, not with the coaches, but they're doing a great job of managing me."

Cardinals RB Jeremiyah Love said he wasn't injured when asked about his right ankle getting worked on by a trainer in the their quarter. He said it was all about maintenance and management.

He said he's frustrated with his snaps being managed because it's limiting his ability…
— Josh Weinfuss (@joshweinfuss) October 4, 2026

Cardinals coaches may be doing a solid job of not overworking Love, but they need to do a better job of designing plays that create open running lanes. Per Pro Football Reference, 153 of Love's 223 rushing yards have come before contact (68.6 percent). For context, 325 of Buffalo Bills RB James Cook's 421 rushing yards have come before contact (77.2 percent). Cook ranks No. 1 in the league in the advanced stat and No. 2 in total rushing yards.

If Arizona doesn't, it will continue to drain Love, making the longest year of the 21-year-old's life even longer.

Clark Dalton

Clark Dalton is a 2022 journalism graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He gained experience in sports media over the past seven years — from live broadcasting and creating short films to podcasting and producing. In college, he wrote for The Daily Texan. He loves sports and enjoys hiking, kayaking and camping.

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