Source to TNT: Seahawks, new team star Julian Love expected to sign new 3-year, $36M deal

For as long as John Schneider has been in charge of Seahawks contracts, he’s typically gotten new deals done with the team’s foundational players on the first days of training camp entering the final years of their deals.

Just one season into his time playing for Seattle, Julian Love is certifiably a Seahawks foundational player. He has up to 36 million ways to show that now.

The team and its Pro Bowl safety from last season — who was so good he made $70 million former All-Pro safety Jamal Adams expendable — finalize an agreement Thursday on a new three-year contract, as a league source told The News Tribune was expected Wednesday evening.

Love signed the contract Thursday before the second practice of training camp. It could be worth up to $36 million, including performance incentives and bonus. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that first.

“It’s huge, it means everything,” Love told the team’s website after signing his deal with his wife, Julia, and son, Noah next to him at Seahawks headquarters. “I think my career has been defined by having a lot of patience, just taking ahold of every opportunity that I’ve had, and just trying to stay as productive and consistent as I can. This is a culmination of all of that, so I’m extremely proud.

“I just try to be productive as I can in every opportunity I’ve been given, and that’s the story of my career I feel like. I was taking a chance on myself, but when in doubt I always bet on myself.”

Love, a former captain for the New York Giants, had signed a two-year contract with Seattle worth up to $12 million before last season. That deal ends after this season.

This new contact has the potential to double his money and take Love, who became a new father when his wife Julia had baby boy Noah last Christmastime, past his 29th birthday. The new deal ties Love to Seattle through the 2027 season.

New Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald has been raving about Love all spring into summer.

“On the field he has elite poise, and that’s something we’re chasing (as a team),” Macdonald said during offseason practices in late May. “If something doesn’t go our way let’s keep our poise, play the next play.

“The game is slow to him, so to be able to communicate at a high level shows you what it should feel like when he’s out there.”

Julian Love’s great year

This time last year, Love was trying to find a role in Seattle’s defense upon his arrival from the Giants. Then Adams didn’t return smoothly or effectively from a torn quadriceps tendon from the opening game of the 2022 season then residual knee pain. Love moved into Adams’ spot, starting in the back of Seattle’s defense with Diggs.

Love, 26, set career highs for interceptions (four) and pass breakups (10). His 123 tackles were one fewer than his career high in 2022 with the Giants. Love earned his the first Pro Bowl selection of his five-year NFL career.

How valuable was Love to the Seahawks in 2023?

Love went from 100 percent of defensive plays in the season’s first month to 44% in week six, at Cincinnati. Adams played 85% of the time against the Bengals. Love only played 39% of snaps at Baltimore, while Adams played 86%. Love played just 20% of the defensive plays at Dallas, when Adams played 99% of the time and got beaten for the Cowboys’ go-ahead touchdown pass in the fourth quarter.

Seattle lost all three of those games. The defense gave up 95 points in those three games Adams played far more than Love.

Soon after, the Seahawks shut down Adams for the rest of the season. The first game after that decision, Love had two interceptions of Jalen Hurts in the fourth quarter Dec. 18. That sealed Seattle’s upset of Philadelphia and ended the Seahawks’ four-game losing streak.

Love learned a couple weeks later he’d been voted into the Pro Bowl.

Soon after that he and his wife had their baby boy, a day and a half before Love flew from the birth in Seattle to Tennessee to play in the Seahawks’ win at the Titans on Christmas Eve.

“I mean, shoot, there were some games I barely played this year,” he said in December. “The Ravens game, Dallas game, I wasn’t out there that much. By a lot of people’s eyes, I was the third safety, which in some games I was.

“I just tried to stay productive and just kind of do my thing. Fan voting, I didn’t even place for that this year. So it was just out of my mind all year.”

Schneider, Macdonald and the Seahawks decided to release Adams and Diggs on the same day this spring. Adams signed a one-year contract with Tennessee this month. Diggs remains unsigned as training camp begins around the league this week.

The Seahawks are instead riding with Love. His new safety partner is the also-versatile Rayshawn Jenkins, who signed this offseason from Jacksonville.

“We have several guys like that (who we are able to move around the defense), so really excited about that,” Macdonald said.

“J Love in particular, a guy that will be able to move around, change some different spots. ...He’ll be a guy we’ll be able to move around and utilize in a pretty sweet way.”