FlurrySports discusses how Arizona Cardinals RB Tyler Allgeier is massively undervalued in 2026 fantasy football ADP.
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With NFL Training Camps hot out of the gates, news on what teams’ rosters could look like come Week 1 of the season continues to break. While it is hard to take much of what you see in training camp at face value, there are some interesting notes on various positional battles that will have a major impact on fantasy football as a whole. Not all of this information is useful or even true, but every now and then, hearing about the usage of players has to make you take notice as we start building our plans for our upcoming fantasy drafts.
That is what we have here when looking at the Arizona Cardinals’ backfield after hearing who is taking the first-team reps.
Let’s break down how Tyler Allgeier getting the early lead in training camp affects not only himself, but also Jeremiyah Love and James Conner’s fantasy value.
Tyler Allgeier’s Fantasy Football Value Rises
Tyler Allgeier’s Fantasy ADP is Too Low Given the Potential Starting Spot
The Arizona Cardinals made a splash in free agency this offseason when they signed Tyler Allgeier to a two-year, $12.25M deal. With the Cardinals in limbo this year, this deal felt like they were bringing in a bridge running back to help them transition into a rebuild. That thought kind of changed, though, when the Cardinals made Jeremiyah Love their first-round pick, spending the third overall pick on the Notre Dame alum. With the draft capital that they spent on Love, a logical thought is that he is going to be the go-to, workhorse in the backfield. After hearing reports from early training camp, that does not seem like it will be the case.
Allgeier has been seeing the first crack in the backfield in training camp, shedding a little bit of light on the situation. Given Allgeier’s track record in the NFL, it makes sense that he should see the first reps. A year before Bijan Robinson came into the league with Atlanta, Allgeier finished his rookie season with 1,035 rushing yards on just short of five yards per carry. He went on to be one of the more productive backup running backs in the NFL after Robinson joined the Falcons. So, to question if Allgeier has the pedigree to start over Love is the wrong thing to do, and it makes sense why the two are seeing basically a split for the first-team reps.
As of August 1st, Tyler Allgeier’s fantasy football ADP is currently RB43 at pick 135, meaning that a potential starting running back is being drafted in the 11th-13th round of fantasy drafts. He is going behind guys like Kyler Murray and the Denver Broncos Defense.
If that ADP continues to stay stagnant and we continue to get reports of Allgeier getting the starting snaps, he is in the running for the biggest sleeper pick in fantasy football this season.
What Does This Mean for Jeremiyah Love?
I don’t know about you, but the Arizona Cardinals’ backfield situation feels eerily similar to what the New England Patriots went through last season with Rhamondre Stevenson and TreVeyon Henderson. To start the season, Stevenson received the lion’s share of the work, and then come December, it looked more like a 60-40 to 50-50 split in work.
Taking a step back and looking at the Arizona Cardinals from a football perspective, it makes a lot of sense to give Allgeier as much work as he can handle. The Cardinals are not going to win many games this year, so it does not make sense to run Love into the ground immediately. He is going to be a part of their future plans, so let the guy that you just signed take the hits and risk the injuries.
As of August 1st, Love is being drafted as RB13 at pick 25, meaning that to get Love, you are probably spending a second or third-round pick on him. We know that to win a fantasy football championship, you need production out of at least your first four picks. So, drafting a player to be a foundational piece of your roster who may not even see 30 plays a game could have major ramifications as you start your march towards glory.
What About James Conner?
With Tyler Allgeier and Jeremiyah Love getting a majority of the starting work, one has to wonder what is going on with James Conner. At the start of training camp, Conner appears to only be participating in individual drills and not team work as he continues to rehab from his ankle and foot injury last season. It does not appear that there is a rush to get the veteran back on the field either, as head coach Mike LaFleur mentioned that Conner knows his body and has the right to return when he is ready.
When he does return, Conner has certainly earned snaps in the backfield, but given his injury history and sitting on the wrong side of 30 years old, any snaps that he does receive in the early part of the season could be an audition for a potential trade down the road.
For whatever it is worth, Conner is being drafted as RB54 at 179, meaning he is basically a free player to take in your fantasy draft.
Should You Draft Tyler Allgeier, Jeremiyah Love or James Conner?
As you can probably tell from what you have already read, I think that the best value out of these three backs in fantasy football is Tyler Allgeier. It is hard to argue that it is Love or Conner, given that Allgeier continues to see the most use in 11-on-11 at Cardinals camp. Like I said before, if you can draft a starting running back in the 12th round, you need to do it every single time regardless of who the team or player is. There is potential for that here.
With Love sitting there with an ADP of 25, you need to ask yourself, would you rather have a rookie running back on a very bad team with your late second-round (or early third pick), or would you rather have a player like Josh Jacobs, Kyren Williams, George Pickens or Chris Olave?
I really like Love’s talent and think that he will be a major part of the Cardinals’ offensive game plan in the future, but as it stands, the Cardinals have no incentive to win and should not risk losing their uber-talented young running back because they gave him too much meaningless work early in his career.
