New York Giants Safety Julian Love Believes He’s The One For The Job

New York Giants, Julian Love
June 5, 2019; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants rookie cornerback Julian Love participates in drills during minicamp. Mandatory Credit: Danielle Parhizkaran/NorthJersey.com via USA TODAY NETWORK

It’s a known fact that the New York Giants aren’t the deepest team at the safety position, but the rise of Julian Love at the position could give them added help this season. Love came onto the scene last year as a rookie, not as highly touted as fellow defensive back DeAndre Baker, who was drafted in the first round, but impactful nonetheless as he began getting playing time mid-season as safety. Now, going into his second year, he has a good chance to make an impact from the beginning of the season rather than the middle.

There’s a number of qualities about Love that make him stand out as a quality player at the safety position, but of course, Love can only make an impact if he’s able to get on the field. And that depends on the direction the Giants coaching staff want to go with the secondary lineup.

However, when speaking to the New York Post recently, Love made his case for being the top safety on the team and said that he believes he is the best option for the position – bold words for a player that went under the radar as a rookie only to break out in the late season.

“I want to be the safety of the future for the Giants,” Love told Paul Schwartz. “I believe I’m the guy. If I didn’t feel that way I wouldn’t say that. But I do feel like that. I’ve been working real hard. I want to go there and get everything in motion and really have a dominant year.”

Love’s confidence is backed up by the fact that the Giants haven’t signed a safety yet in free agency, largely indicating that the solution for the Giants at the position is either already on the roster or will be selected in the upcoming Draft – where the team has more pressing needs to spend their high draft picks on. As for the players on the roster right now, Love and Jabrill Peppers are the obvious frontrunners to be the starting safeties.

“If they did bring in a safety, I know I have multiple traits and multiple strengths to kind of play any position and be successful,” Love continued. “I really feel I can be a safety for this team, what this team needs, so I’m going to go in, I’ve been working hard, I want to go in and hit the ground running to show everybody that, despite who comes in.”

But the fact of the matter is the Giants haven’t brought in a safety yet, and even if they draft one, Love has the advantage of having some experience in the league versus no experience. No matter what way you look at it, it seems Love is one of the main options at the position. Is that warranted? We’ll find out this fall and during training camp when the Giants depth chart begins to sort itself out.