Cardinals were slow to draft Jeremiyah Love. But not for reason many thought

TL;DR

The Arizona Cardinals delayed drafting Jeremiyah Love due to a wrong phone number, not trade talks. Love is the highest-drafted running back since Saquon Barkley in 2018.

Key points

Arizona Cardinals delayed drafting Jeremiyah Love
Delay caused by wrong phone number
Love is highest-drafted running back since Saquon Barkley
Cardinals had third overall pick in 2026 NFL Draft
General manager Monti Ossenfort confirmed the reason for delay

Jeremiyah LoveSaquon BarkleyArizona CardinalsNew York Giants

It wouldn't be unreasonable for someone to think the Arizona Cardinals waiting until the end of their allotted eight minutes meant they were listening to trade offers for the third overall pick of the 2026 NFL Draft.

But that's not what happened, according to general manager Monti Ossenfort.

"If you want me to tell the honest to God truth, we had the wrong phone number," Ossenfort said. "The phone number that we were given was the wrong one, so that was a little bit of the delay."

Arizona eventually figured it out and connected with running back Jeremiyah Love, who was informed that he would be headed to the desert to start his professional career. Love became the highest-drafted running back since the New York Giants took Saquon Barkley second overall in 2018.

"Technical difficulties," Ossenfort joked.

In all seriousness though, Ossenfort said that the Cardinals merely had "surface-level conversations" about trading the pick for a package of additional selections.

"Nothing that came anywhere close to getting us to move off the pick," he said.

The choice confused analysts who argued that Arizona had bigger needs at positions of greater import. But Love is a rare talent who will be an immediate injection of horsepower for the Cardinals' offense and first-year head coach Mike LaFleur.

"I'm not really worried about what the media's saying, or anything like that, where I'm projected to go," Love said. "I really don't care. I just want to go and work and build relationships with people. I want to connect with my fans. I want to connect with the team itself – ownership, coaches, players. Just build connections with people. Because when this game is over, that's all you're going to have left, is your connections with people."

Consider the Cardinals' draft-day phone call the first important connection made.