Julian Love is entering his third NFL season, but could find himself fighting for playing time in a suddenly loaded NY Giants secondary
The NY Giants will be more loaded in the secondary than any other position, and the depth chart shines through when guys like Julian Love don’t spend the majority of the time on the football field.
The former Notre Dame defensive back has the ability to play cornerback, or as a safety, and his ability to prevent receivers from breaking free in the open field facilitated his 64 tackles over 16 games in his sophomore season with the Giants.
Given Love’s relatively clean bill of health dating back to his collegiate playing days at Notre Dame, the five-foot-11 SS/CB2 is a reliable option ahead of the 2021 season.
Love is, however, part of a lauded safeties group that, according to Paul Schwartz, has one fatal flaw:
"The only real problem is the legitimate concern that there is no imposing thumper in the group and there may not be elite play-making ability."
While Love is a good tackler, he isn’t the sort of strike-fear-into-your-heart bruiser in the ilk of an Ed Reed. That isn’t his biggest obstacle, though.
The threat of Xavier McKinney earning time ahead of him is a more pressing threat. The Alabama product is back on the field this season after missing the 2020 season’s first 10 games, and he may have the play-making ability (seven INTs in 34 NCAA Power 5/NFL games) the NY Giants are perceived to lack.
Love has a lot of advantages on the sophomore McKinney, having gone through a normal training camp before in 2019 and avoiding the sort of injury that causes more than one game missed. He could be a training camp breakout waiting to happen.
Both prospects are still young enough for it to be tough to predict, though. Having both come from college football blue blood backgrounds, it wouldn’t be surprising to see either guy establish an edge over the other this summer.
Ultimately, though, it will be the strength of the secondary’s numbers that will likely prevent any one player from having an eye-popping stat sheet by the 2021 season’s end. There are a ton of talented names for Patrick Graham to deploy, and it will be the quality of said quantity that will keep Love’s counting stats relatively pedestrian once more this season.