Julian Love

Julian Love (born March 19, 1998) is an American professional football safety for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Love attended Nazareth Academy in La Grange Park, Illinois. As a senior in 2015, he was the Chicago Sun-Times Football Player of the Year after recording 92 tackles on defense and 1,067 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns on offense. Love committed to the University of Notre Dame to play college football.

As a true freshman at Notre Dame in 2016, Love played in 12 games with eight starts and recorded 45 tackles and one interception. As a sophomore in 2017, he started all 13 games, recording 68 tackles and three interceptions. Love returned as a starter his junior year in 2018. On January 4, 2019, Love announced that he would forgo his final year of eligibility and declare for the 2019 NFL draft.

On January 4, 2019, Love released a statement on his Instagram to officially announce his decision to forgo his senior season at Notre Dame to enter the 2019 NFL Draft. He was ranked as the third cornerback in the draft by NFL media analyst Todd McShay and was ranked the fourth best cornerback by NFL draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr.

The New York Giants selected Love in the fourth round (108th overall) of the 2019 NFL draft. Love was the 10th safety drafted in 2019.

"I love that pick, I don’t understand how he dropped to the fourth round. I think he’s a steal. From my time being around the football team and watching every Notre Dame game, he is always around the ball. In this defense, I think that bodes well."

On May 2, 2019, the New York Giants signed Love to a four–year, $3.29 million contract that includes an initial signing bonus of $779,860.

During rookie training camp, defensive coordinator James Bettcher began having Love learn to play free safety with the aide of starting free safety Antoine Bethea. He continued to play cornerback, free safety, and nickelback in training camp and competed against Grant Haley to be the primary slot cornerback while also competing to be the backup free safety against Michael Thomas. Head coach Pat Shurmur named Love the third free safety on the depth chart to begin the regular season, behind starter Antoine Bethea and backup Sean Chandler.