Julian Love is the free agency dream: Safeties preview

The key to free agency is value spending, not total spending, and that's something the Seahawks usually get right

Free agency has proven to be the downfall of many teams, as GMs (and more likely owners) get impatient with positional weaknesses and think that “throw money at it” will solve any problem. Case in point: The Christian Wilkins release last week.

Jason Fitzgerald noted that it’s not just Wilkins, the GM who signed him was also let go this year:

The signing of Wilkins to a contract of this magnitude was questionable at best and the GM who spearheaded the signing has been replaced. Sometimes when you are trying to change the culture around a team, one of the worst things is a player on a bloated contract that you do not see playing in the future.

For the most part, the Seattle Seahawks have avoided bloated contracts for outside free agents. They try to keep those financial mistakes in-house. Instead, John Schneider (and Pete Carroll) target free agents who are believed to be under-valued on the market. Sometimes you get Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril, other times you get Cary Williams.

But it’s sort of like how studios bank on one box office hit to make up for the losses of every bomb that they release that year:

The Seahawks had one of their worst free agency years ever in 2024 (Rayshawn Jenkins, Laken Tomlinson, Jerome Baker, Tyrel Dodson, Connor Williams, Laviska Shenault) but eventually all of those mistakes culminated in the addition of Ernest Jones.

And luckily for Seattle, they didn’t have to focus as much on their whiffs because a) the combined amount paid to all of those players is still less than one Christian Wilkins and b) they were busy re-upping several of their outside veteran home runs … including Julian Love.

More than a decade after forming the best safety tandem in NFL history, Carroll stumbled there at the end of his Seattle career by overpaying Quandre Diggs, mortgaging the future on Jamal Adams (the combined dead money cap hits on those two in 2024 was $31 million), and continuing his streak of bad draft picks at the position. Between Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor in 2010 and Coby Bryant in 2022 (who Carroll miscast as a cornerback), the Seahawks drafted nine safeties who failed to make an impact on the team, including Marquise Blair, Lano Hill, and Tedric Thompson.

Ironically, his last move at safety was discovering Love as a massively undervalued free agent and stealing him from the Giants for only $6 million per year.

Even Love’s re-up last year at $11 million AAV is a bargain, ranking 15th at the position despite a probable repeat ranking in the NFL’s next Top-100 list.

That’s just a really dumb list, but the respect does suggest that Love has been at worst a top-10 safety since coming to Seattle. Macdonald got even more out of Love than Carroll did, he put Bryant in position to be a long-term starter either with the Seahawks or another team, and Schneider has now raised the ceiling tremendously by drafting Nick Emmanwori.

What could have been the biggest disaster position on the depth chart at the end of Pete’s career has quickly turned into one of Seattle’s greatest strengths. And it all started by sprinkling in free agency rather than trying to make a big splash.

Excitement/Worry Levels

Julian Love: 9/10 never worried about him

Signing players like Julian Love is rarely exciting in the moment and nobody was predicting at the time that he would be among the league leaders in interceptions (7) over the past two seasons. Not just seven interceptions as a meaningless tally … When Love makes a play, he makes a highlight. His picks are often not “easy” picks.

Love is also one of the best tackling safeties in the NFL and his experience as a college cornerback places him among the best at tracking receivers/the ball.

At 27, Love could have at least three more good seasons in him, possibly one or two as an All-Pro because Macdonald is as good as any defensive coordinator when it comes to putting safeties in position to create turnovers. ProFootballNetwork put Love at #55 on their top-100 list:

In 2024, Love logged 95% of Seattle’s defensive snaps, recording 106 tackles, three for a loss, three interceptions, and a career-high 12 pass breakups. His 29 defensive stops ranked 12th among all safeties.

The Seahawks boasted a top-10 unit in Defense+ last season, with the secondary playing a huge role in the unit’s success. Love’s physicality and ball production are valuable assets.

Film clip of the day: What is Quarters coverage? By MatchQuarters

Nick Emmanwori: 7.5/10 patient

I wrote before that Emmanwori is not Kyle Hamilton, but let’s use Baltimore’s All-Pro safety as a comparison for something:

• Hamilton, 548 snaps as a rookie (53%)

• Hamilton, 937 snaps in year two (91%)

Arguably the best safety in the NFL and a guy who many projected as “NFL-ready” coming out of Notre Dame in 2022, even Hamilton spent half of the season on the sidelines while playing for Macdonald.

Seattle has two starting safeties and three starting cornerbacks (assuming Shaquill Griffin) and we don’t know if somebody like D’Anthony Bell emerges in camp as someone who could be the latest quality free agent. There’s no rush to make Emmanwori a high-impact player immediately, so we should accept a patient year when it comes to the Seahawks’ second pick.

(Most of this article was written before I left for a road trip so it is not updated with the latest reports of Emmanwori‘s impressive displays of talent at training camp over the past week. To these reports I say, “sounds awesome, can’t wait to see more!” and I am all for a field tilting addition to the secondary this season if that’s what happens.)

Coby Bryant: 6/10 cautious with expectations

Bryant’s 2024 season was fun to watch (all three interceptions, including a pick-six, came during a Seahawks win) and more than anything else he was refreshing sight after six games of Jenkins. But whether he repeats or not, there is not a high probabity of re-signing in Seattle after the season.

That’s just the reality of being an NFL safety. The good ones change teams as often as good starters at any position.

• If you look at the top receiver contracts, the highest AAV by a player who left his team to sign that deal in free agency is Calvin Ridley at $23 million per season. That ranks 18th among all receivers.

• The next highest is Davante Adams, who is right below him at $22 million.

• The next is Cooper Kupp, who is making $15m per and is ranked 25th.

• All of those receivers are over 30.

We have established that good receivers either re-sign with their teams or are traded prior to signing extensions, no? The best free agents are over 30.

Compare that to safeties:

• The highest-paid free agent safety is Trevon Moehrig at $17 million AAV, which is the sixth-biggest salary at the position.

• Xavier McKinney is seventh

• Jessie Bates III is eighth

• Jevon Holland is ninth

• Cam Bynum is 10th

• Talanoa Hufanga is 12th

• Julian Love is 15th

All seven of those players — half of the highest-paid safeties in the NFL — left one team for another in free agency and they’re all under 30. In fact, Bates is the only one older than 27 and he’s 28.

If Coby Bryant has a bad season, letting him go will be an easy decision.

If Bryant has a good season, letting him go won’t be as easy but it will probably happen anyway. Other than the top-5 safeties in the NFL by AAV (Kerby Joseph, Antoine Winfield, Derwin James, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Budda Baker) that’s just what happens to all of them.

And the rest: Jerrick Reed II, D’Anthony Bell, AJ Finley, Ty Okada

Bell got a shoutout early in camp for an interception. Reed is so far just the latest in a long line of safeties drafted by Seattle who hasn’t had an impact on the team’s defense. But the nature of the position is that anybody could be thrust into regular season games and make plays. Versatility and special teams ability will be the key factors in who makes the 53-man roster as depth.

Reminder: Seaside Joe is on vacation, so apologies if I don’t get back to you this week!

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