ESPN’s Mina Kimes shares inconvenient reality of Titans fans’ favorite justification for drafting Jeremiyah Love 4th overall

Jeremiyah Love is more than just the best running back prospect in this draft class: he’s an offensive weapon. But what is the actual impact of a RB like this?

Easton Freeze — Tennessee Titans Beat Writer
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Sep 20, 2025; South Bend, Indiana, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish running back Jeremiyah Love (4) runs the ball against the Purdue Boilermakers during the first half at Notre Dame Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Michael Caterina-Imagn Images

Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love is the most confounding piece of this year’s draft puzzle. He’s one of the greatest running backs we’ve seen come through the draft in recent history, the consensus top offensive prospect, and a very popular choice for top overall prospect in the entire class.

Tennessee Titans fans are split, but a very large and very loud faction of them want the Titans to make him the next great back in this franchise’s pantheon of great runners. I wrote last week, as someone who sees Love at 4th overall as a necessary evil at the very best, what gives me the most comfort about his profile: his versatility in the receiving game.

I encourage you to read that breakdown here. In it, I tried to emphasize the middle ground at play with a prospect like this. Yes, he isn’t a runner only. He offers much more as a downfield threat than Ashton Jeanty or Ezekiel Elliott for example. And that’s a big deal! He is an active threat to box defenders at all times, at all three levels of the field.

But even the best receiving backs don’t have a true wide receiver impact on an offense. And on ESPN’s Mina Kimes’ latest show, she shared some sobering statistical perspective to this end.

Mina Kimes explains why Jeremiyah Love’s receiving impact is limited

Kimes had on Yahoo’s Nate Tice and the Ringer’s Danny Kelly last week, and she laid out the historical path she sees for a young QB to break out.

“When you look back at the young quarterbacks, year one or two, who broke out and you look at the conditions, every single one of them: I made a list right now, had either a WR1, like a legit dude, or—and this is what you would say with the 2016 Cowboys—Dak Prescott, an elite offensive line. Very few of them had elite running backs, to be honest. It’s wide receiver, offensive line.”

This is when she addresses the caution you have to have when defaulting to the “well he’s not just a running back, he’s an offensive weapon” line of reasoning.

“It’s not entirely fair to limit this to EPA when you’re talking about receiving,” she fairly points out. “Last year, total receiving EPA, Christian McCaffrey ranked 34th. Expected points added, which is basically looking at every single play and asking how much does it get you closer to scoring a touchdown? It’s the most totalistic way to look at value. Christian McCaffrey was 34th behind Parker Washington. Bijan Robinson was 55th behind Elic Ayomanor.”

That’s total expected points added in the 2025 season. McCaffrey was just behind Jaguars WR3/4 Parker Washington! A feel-good story about a young receiver who had a surprisingly large impact: nearly 850 yards and 5 touchdowns. Robinson came in behind Tennessee’s own Elic Ayomanor! I don’t have to explain to Titans fans what kind of impact he had as a rookie. And if you look at EPA/play instead, it only gets uglier. Robinson led RB’s in that department, ranking 85th overall behind Jauan Johnson.

Nate Tice chimed in on the podcast to second this point. “I’ve looked at those kind of numbers before, and it was basically the best receiving running backs or worth like a solid tight end or like a number three. Yes, at best.”

That best, to be clear, is that Love becomes 100% of what CMC is. And that’s a wholly unfair bar to set for his professional expectation. This doesn’t mean Love isn’t a great prospect, he is. And his receiving prowess is a big part of his profile. But it’s important to keep in mind just how impactful that will be.

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