James Conner Is 31, and He's All Arizona Has at Running Back
The depth chart at running back tells you everything you need to know about where the Cardinals stand heading into 2026: James Conner is the starter, Tavien Feaster is the backup, and Tyler Allgeier is third. None of those names registered meaningful playing time last season. Behind them is a rookie who can't practice. That is the succession plan.
Jeremiyah Love was supposed to change the calculus at this position. The Cardinals used the third overall pick on him precisely because the running back situation was already a documented crisis — Conner's production last season was a fraction of what a functional starting back should deliver, and there was no viable depth behind him. Love's high-ankle sprain, suffered on 23 snaps against the Raiders, didn't just delay his debut. It exposed how little margin Arizona built into this plan. The organization was betting that a rookie could immediately shoulder the load at a position where the incumbent starter is 31 years old and already past the age threshold where backs typically decline. That was always a compressed timeline. Now it's compressed further, with Love's Week 1 availability genuinely uncertain.
What makes this particularly uncomfortable is the context I've been tracking all offseason. When I wrote about Love's injury last week, the framing was about the cost of a top-three pick getting hurt before the season started. That's still true. But the more durable problem is what sits underneath it: Conner's 2025 production was the kind of number that signals a position in distress, not a starter carrying a load. The roster analysis flagged the running back room as a high-priority need, and the Cardinals' answer was Love — singular. No veteran depth addition of consequence, no competition at the position beyond names that never logged meaningful snaps.
High-ankle sprains are not always catastrophic, and the Cardinals have said they're hopeful Love can play in Week 1. That hope is real, but it's also doing a lot of structural work. A high-ankle sprain on a running back — a position that demands lateral cuts, acceleration, and contact absorption on every snap — is not the kind of injury that disappears cleanly after two weeks of rest. The preseason snaps Love won't take now are snaps where he would have learned to read this offensive line, built timing with Brissett, and gotten his body accustomed to NFL contact. He'll arrive at the regular season, if he arrives healthy, without any of that.
My read is that the Cardinals are one Conner absence away from a genuine emergency at running back. The offensive line is already compromised — Bisontis is on injured reserve with a torn MCL, Adams is facing legal uncertainty — and a running game that can't threaten defenses will put everything on Brissett's arm and on a receiving corps that was already thin before Tejhaun Palmer was claimed off waivers by New England. These problems compound each other. A functional backfield can protect a patchwork line; a broken backfield makes every other deficiency worse. Arizona built their 2026 offense around the assumption that Love would be ready, healthy, and immediately productive. That assumption is now at risk before a regular-season snap has been played.