Cardinals Say Jeremiyah Love Will Be Last-Minute Call vs. Chargers

Reports say Jeremiyah Love will play. The Arizona Cardinals aren't quite committing to that yet.

Arizona Cardinals running back Jeremiyah Love practices during training camp at State Farm Stadium in Glendale. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

TEMPE — The Arizona Cardinals are doing their best to downplay running back Jeremiyah Love and his potential to play on Sunday against the Los Angeles Chargers.

"Still got another good day of work today to kind of figure that out. But he's trending well," said Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur on Friday.

When asked if it was fair to call Love a game-time decision on Sunday, LaFleur said:

"Yeah, I'd say so."

Several reports indicate the expectation is Love will play at SoFi Stadium, making his official NFL debut. The Cardinals will reveal game designations later today that will see Love marked as questionable, doubtful, out or fully off the injury report in general.

Official inactives will be due 90 minutes prior to kickoff on Sunday.

Love is working his way back from a high ankle sprain initially suffered in preseason play. Sunday will be two days shy of a full calander month of recovery time for the third overall pick.

Love has been spotted working at practice and his been listed as limited in both prior days of Cardinals practice. LaFleur did rule out starting right guard Isaiah Adams alongside Garrett Williams and Dadrion Taylor-Demerson.

There's been plenty of discussion around the Cardinals' usage of Love and what things will look like in terms of a workload. LaFleur, when speaking with reporters, says regardless of the rookie's health there's always going to be a split workload:

"I think the backs in some aspects are limited anyways because we're going to sub them. I don't really care if everyone was 1000%, I don't believe in playing those guys 65 of the 65 snaps, or 72 of the 72 snaps," he said.

"So we'll always do what we think is best for these guys, health-wise, first and foremost. And then second, what's going to help us as a team."

Love's playmaking out of the backfield, though only seen live in one game during preseason, was fairly obvious — which has generated plenty of buzz around the desert. Some aren't fans of how the Cardinals will deploy Love, at least initially, though LaFleur seems insistent to not run any of his running backs into the ground.

That makes sense in terms of health, though Arizona also likes what they have out of power runner Tyler Allgeier and third rotational rusher Bam Knight. James Conner is on injured reserve and is eligible to return after four weeks as well.