EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- It all comes full circle. Here come the New York Giants potentially coming on the clock near the top of the 2026 NFL draft next week with the best player on the board being a running back.
Namely, Notre Dame's Jeremiyah Love, the consensus top offensive skill position player. ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. says he has Love graded in a similar range to Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkley, Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs when they came out of college.
It's possible given this evaluation that the Giants could be faced with the same question they did in 2018 when they selected Barkley second out of Penn State. Is it worth taking a running back with such a high pick?
New York, with needs all over the roster, selects fifth Thursday.
Love would be a fit with new coach John Harbaugh's desire to build the Giants into a dominant running team. And Harbaugh clearly believes that Love is a very talented player.
"Yes, I do," Harbaugh said recently at the annual league meeting s. "Yes, I would probably say very, very good player. Put a couple verys in front of that. Maybe a couple more. He's really good!"
Good enough for a top 5 pick? In this draft, the answer is likely yes.
The bigger question will be whether Love is still on the board when the Giants pick in the first round. Multiple league sources (including some inside the Giants building) are working under the premise that Love will be gone before New York picks. There have been whispers he could go third to the Arizona Cardinals, fourth to the Tennessee Titans or some club could trade up to grab the running back who averaged 6.9 yards per carry combined over the past two seasons.