Jeremiyah Love Camp Update — August 16: Fourteen Touches, First-Team Snaps, One Ankle

Jeremiyah Love's first NFL game lasted about a half and produced 14 touches for 72 yards. Tyler Drake at Arizona Sports charted the rookie at 11 carries and three receptions in the first half against the Raiders on Thursday night; the Associated Press recap had him at 58 rushing yards on those 11 carries. For a third overall pick making his preseason debut, that is a start-caliber workload handed over on night one. Then came the part that keeps this from being a clean story: Love exited with an ankle injury and did not return.

Head coach Mike LaFleur moved quickly to lower the temperature. He said the injury was not considered serious and that Love could have returned if necessary, per Drake at Arizona Sports. Asked about practice availability, LaFleur said, quote, I would think he would practice this week based off of our conversations, but you never know, and added, quote, we'll take that day by day, but just talking to him in there, he was good, excited and happy to be out there playing.

The June preview refused to predict any of this. We said rookie production cannot be forecast at a standard we would put our name on, that the Arizona job was winnable and crowded at the same time, and that the thing to watch was snap share, because a back who gets most of the snaps is a different asset than a rotation piece. That question is being answered earlier and louder than expected. In the August ninth practice, Love took the first snaps with the starting offense on each of the Cardinals' first three drives, his most significant usage of camp, with five carries and four targets, and Theo Mackie at AZCentral reported the staff is using him in more versatile motion and route packages. Then Thursday, the debut workload backed up the practice script. The one back ahead of him on the veteran depth chart, James Conner, still has not participated in 11-on-11 work.

Does the June read hold? COMPLICATED — the snap-share question we told you to watch is breaking toward the featured version of Jeremiyah Love faster than a crowded room suggested, but he left his debut on a bad ankle, and day by day is an outlook, not a clearance.

Next week has two checkable items: whether Love practices fully ahead of the Dallas game on August 20-second, and if he plays, whether the first-team usage pattern from this week simply resumes. If it does, the rotation-piece scenario is dying quietly. We'll check next Sunday.

_Data via nflverse._