Top position battles to watch in NFL pre-season: Competitions in the backfield

Just three games and weeks of practice to show your talent before rosters are cut from 90 to 53 ahead of the regular season. That leaves over 1,100 athletes without a job.

It's a brutal part of the business — one that reaps many rewards once you make it. But the cutthroat nature of the National Football League adds benefit to fans at a time where everyone is ready and waiting for the real thing.

Did the rookie win the starting job? What about the off-season acquisition? It's the position battles that give extra meaning to the pre-season, and they are now front and centre on every team's to-do list with the regular season kicking off on Sept. 9.

So with that, here are some of the top competitions going on around the NFL:

The Arizona Cardinals are loaded in the backfield, and if everyone were healthy, it would be a four-headed monster.

But injuries can't be turned off, and the Cardinals are already dealing with health issues at the position after just one week into the pre-season.

That aside, talk about an embarrassment of riches at the running back position.

The Cardinals had James Conner — who was coming off back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons before being limited to just three games last season — and 2024 third-rounder Trey Benson, then signed Tyler Allgeier in the off-season to a two-year deal and added prized rookie Jeremiyah Love with the third-overall pick in April's draft.

Allgeier has played in all but one game over his pro career, topping 1,000 yards in his rookie campaign and then rushed for eight scores last year in Atlanta.

Love, meanwhile, notched 1,372 yards and 18 TDs on the ground last year at Notre Dame, and is widely expected to become a superstar at the next level. Unfortunately, he suffered a high-ankle sprain in the pre-season opener after touching the ball 14 times in the first half — an absurdly high workload that clearly carried too much risk.

The youngster is now out for the remainder of the pre-season and his Week 1 status is in jeopardy, which adds even more intrigue to the position battle.

Will Conner be back and healthy and ready to contribute? Will Arizona move on from Benson, or hope he too can figure it out when healthy? Will money come into play? Allgeier and Conner are both on the hook for over $4 million this season, while Love's cap hit is north of $9.6 million.

All will be answered soon enough, but for now, the Cardinals have four quality options at the RB position and only one ball to go around.

That's the question in Atlanta, where former first-rounder Michael Penix Jr. and newcomer Tua Tagovailoa are battling it out for the right to hand the ball off to Bijan Robinson.