Julian Love’s position officially switched on NY Giants’ website
After the recent DeAndre Baker debacle, Julian Love’s position has officially been changed on the NY Giants’ website.
Our very own contributor here at @GMENHQ, David Solow, made an interesting discovery this week when he realized that Julian Love’s position had been changed from safety to cornerback on the NY Giants’ official website in the wake of DeAndre Baker’s arrest.
Solow recently wrote an article speculating on what might be the five best options to replace Baker as the NY Giants’ #2 cornerback, and interestingly enough he listed Love as Big Blue’s current best option to take over for the ever-struggling – both on and off the field – Baker.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out should Baker actually miss any game time, as the G-Men drafted the free safety of the future, Xavier McKinney to pair with Jabrill Peppers. Most expected that would mean a move back to slot cornerback for the second-year pro out of Notre Dame, but that conflicts with the drafting of Darnay Holmes in the third round as he seems to fit that role perfectly.
Even though some were miffed at drafting another corner in the third round of this past NFL draft, it would have been very nice to be able to have two high-level slot corners and two (hopefully) high-level outside corners; especially considering how often teams play in dime packages now.
The main question surrounding Love’s ability to play outside cornerback is his perceived lack of speed, but as Solow pointed out, Love was a Jim Thorpe Award finalist and did some of his best work against Clemson, whose roster is littered with future NFL studs at wideout.
Love ran a 4.54 40 time at the NFL combine, only to later improve his time at Notre Dame’s pro day down to an impressive 4.45. Still, teams tend to put a lot more stock into what happens at the combine. The former fourth-round draft pick stands 5’11 tall, about two inches taller than Holmes, so he should be able to deal with the size of outside receivers better than the rookie.
I tend to believe that if a player like Love can stick with players as explosive as Clemson has that he can do the same at the NFL level and that even if DeAndre Baker were to never have been arrested that he should have challenged for his spot based on the two rookies’ play last year.
New head coach, Joe Judge, has been strong on his point that every player will have to earn their spot, and although that may go out the window sometimes with first-rounders, if you take him at his word than we were likely bound to see that competition, anyway.
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Either way, Love appears to have the inside track at the starting #2 corner spot opposite James Bradberry, and he’s the type of high character guy that both Gettleman and Judge say they want.