Every May the dynasty crowd talks themselves out of the obvious. The obvious in 2026 is Jeremiyah Love. He turned 20 in March, he ran for 1,400 yards on a Notre Dame team that played in the national championship, and Arizona spent the 11th overall pick on him three weeks ago.
If your league is even slightly skewed toward Superflex, that does not change the answer. Love is the 1.01.
The talent profile
Love is 6-foot, 214 pounds, with a sub-4.45 forty and contact balance that grades out as the best in the class. The thing that separates him from the typical "first-rounder, top-five rookie" tier is the receiving game. He caught 36 balls at Notre Dame in 2025, ran route trees out of the slot in red-zone packages, and was used as a designed flat target on third down. Lead backs who can stay on the field for passing situations age more gracefully than two-down hammers. The dynasty math rewards that.
The landing spot
Arizona is the part that should make this an easy call. The Cardinals just signed left tackle to a four-year extension, drafted a center in the second, and have Kyler Murray on a contract that runs through 2029. James Conner is a free agent next March and 31 years old in May. The depth chart in front of Love right now is Conner and a fifth-round 2024 pick. By Week 8 it is Love, and the workload sits at 250-plus touches if he stays healthy.
Compare that to the last three 1.01s: Bijan Robinson in Atlanta (better team now than then, but his early-career environment was thin), Breece Hall on the Jets (post-injury), Najee Harris in Pittsburgh (worst offensive line in the league). Love walks into a top-eight scheme with a real quarterback. That is rare for a rookie back.
The age math
He plays his entire 2026 season at 20. He will be 23 entering year four. The dynasty back age cliff sits at 28. You are paying for a four-year, full-workload window before the curve even starts to bend. The lib/tradeValue engine on this site grades Love at 88 in SF, which is RB1 overall and inside the top 12 of all dynasty assets.
Where the discount comes from
The bear case is that running backs are running backs. The shelf is shorter than wide receivers. The hit rate of top-three rookies in the dynasty era is great for receivers and merely good for backs. Fine. Build that risk into the price, and Love is still the asset. If you trade the 1.01 for a 2026 first plus a fringe top-30 receiver, you are paying a wide receiver tax on an asset whose workload is already guaranteed.
What to actually do
If you have the 1.01, take Love and stop overthinking it. If you are picking 1.02 or 1.03, the only trade-up you should be making is for him, and the price stops at "your pick plus a 2027 first." Anyone asking for more is selling you a tier they do not actually have.
The dynasty community will spend the next four months talking themselves into Carnell Tate at the top. By Week 4 of the 2026 season, when Love has 90 carries and three touchdowns, that conversation ends.