Jordan Rodgers blasts Jeremiyah Love: 'Not a generational player;' Dan Orlovsky fires back

The NFL Draft is set to begin tonight and Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love will almost certainly hear his name called in the first round, if not the top 10 picks. Just how high, though, is a matter of some debate.

ESPN’s Get Up panel on Thursday morning hotly debated the issue. Could he go as high as No. 3 to the Arizona Cardinals?

“Under no circumstance can you take Jeremiyah Love No. 3,” former Vanderbilt quarterback and current ESPN analyst Jordan Rodgers said. “You’re going to owe him $50 million in guaranteed money. That’s more than Saquon (Barkley), more than Christian McCaffery, more than Derrick Henry. You can’t do that, especially when you don’t have a quarterback; you don’t have an offensive identity right now. You can’t add a player like that and expect to then take the next step with a running back. It doesn’t happen.”

His take on Jeremiyah Love was not done there. Not by a long shot.

The analyst then questioned just how good Love is as a prospect period. He pointed to his college production as a means of knocking the overall talent level, throwing serious shade at the running back.

“I love Jeremiyah Love as a prospect, but also he’s not a generational player,” Rodgers said. “If you go back and look at college, he didn’t do great against the best defenses he played. He got shut down last year in a bowl game — I mean that early 2025 against Ohio State — had like eight total yards. Miami shut him down Week 1, and then they didn’t really play anybody after that.

“So I didn’t see the production against elite defenses that tells me that’s a generational player, no matter if the value doesn’t match, you take him at No. 3 or top 5. I just didn’t see it.”

Former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky had a decidedly different view. He weighed in.

“Good morning. Pittsburgh is amazing, and so is Jeremiyah Love,” Orlovsky said. “I’m going to start with this: The draft, to its inception, to its genesis, is to acquire talent. Not to get the best value versus certain positions or whatnot. It’s for the bad teams to get the good players and the good teams to get the less good players. Arizona, obviously, bad team. They need good players. Everybody is saying this is a draft that has four or five-star, blue-chip prospects, Jeremiyah Love being one of them.

“Why are we overthinking this? We’re listening to people say, ‘Man, Fernando Mendoza‘s going to go one to the Raiders and they’ve got Brock Bowers and Ashton Jeanty, and then everybody going, ‘Look at Ashton Jeanty last year, the Raiders shouldn’t have taken him.”

That was Orlovsky’s main point on Jermiyah Love. But his secondary points might have been equally strong.

He provided some justification for paying a running back quality money. As much as Arizona would have to commit at No. 3 overall?

“That’s No. 1. Two, we have watched over the last couple of years, good organizations, great organizations like Philly, San Francisco, Baltimore, Green Bay, Kansas City, Buffalo all pay running backs $10 million plus,” Orlovsky said. “All those good organizations did it. Maybe we, all of us, are undervaluing what a running back actually is in the NFL. If those organizations are doing it, why are all of us questioning everybody else doing it?”

So what will it be for Jeremiyah Love? Tune in tonight at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, ESPN, or the NFL Network to find out.