The unexpected Pro Bowler: Julian Love better than Seahawks thought, just as his wife knew
Julian Love was in high school, in his native Chicago area, weighing his options on where to attend college and play college football.
He won consecutive Illinois state championships starring for Nazareth Academy, in the 2014 and ‘15 seasons. His girlfriend graduated a class ahead of his, in 2015, at Nazareth Academy in La Grange Park, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago.
Yes, she absolutely was a factor.
For Love, she always has been. And still is.
When Love was signing a letter of intent to play college football, Julia Veome was a freshman at Saint Mary’s College, a private women’s liberal-arts school with 1,600 students. The college is in South Bend, Indiana, about two hours east of where Love was at Nazareth Academy.
Saint Mary’s is across the street from Notre Dame.
“How far? I could throw a football (to it). It’s right across one road,” Love, 25, said Thursday.
That is how the Seahawks’ newest Pro Bowl safety has been with his wife Julia, the mother of their newborn son Noah, since high school.
“She was a year ahead, so she was going there. And I was a three-star recruit,” Love said. “I got an offer from Notre Dame.”
He didn’t have to even think about what to do about that.
“I committed on the spot,” he said.
“That was my dream school, and it just happened to work out. I just think that was something that was meant to be.”
Yes, he deadpanned, “that made it easier for our relationship.”
Now Love is praising his wife and high-school sweetheart every time he talks. He is heralding the nurturing Julia Veome Love is doing with Noah, their healthy, happy, eight-pound baby boy born Dec. 22.
Love was away from the Seahawks all that week. He stayed with his wife as the team traveled to Nashville to play its must-win game at Tennessee Christmas Eve. The NFC defensive player of the week that week for his two interceptions against Philadelphia Dec. 18 was by Julia’s side when Noah was born about 2:30 p.m. on the Friday before the Sunday game in Tennessee.
Once he was assured Mom and baby were healthy, Love got on a plane Saturday for Nashville. He re-joined the Seahawks at their hotel the night before the game.
Love started that game. He made key third-down stops and helped Seattle beat the Titans 20-17. He said outside the locker room immediately after the win he wouldn’t have played had his wife not given birth before the game.
“You know, I promised that I would be a great teammate. I see these guys in here and I will do whatever I can to see these guys succeed,” he said minutes after the game in Nashville.
“My greatest team I’ve ever had is her.”
He should have been chosen for the Pro Bowl just for that.
Thursday, he continued praising his wife for all she’s done to support him. She and Love have been together from Nazareth Academy through Notre Dame, through him being drafted by then the captain of the New York Giants last season. This week, the NFL announced him as a first-time Pro Bowl selection, as the Seahawks’ play-making safety.
“It was ups and downs, highs and lows, initially. But then, this year, we’ll be together for 10 years now,” he said of Julia. “I feel like the past eight have just been the best. We just know each other. She’s my person. Some people in the building know her, have heard of her.
“She’s one of the smartest people I know. She’s good.
“Now, she’s a wonderful mother.”
Julian Love surprised with Pro Bowl
Love hasn’t been in what you’d exactly call a starring role through this his fifth NFL season, his Seattle debut.
The Seahawks signed him in March to a two-year contract worth up to $12 million. Coach Pete Carroll and defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt coveted Love for his experience playing every position in the secondary in his four seasons with the Giants. New York let him leave rather than pay him after his rookie contract ended last winter.
Carroll’s and Hurtt’s plan for this season was to have Love play with Jamal Adams, who was returning from a torn quadriceps tendon that ended his 2022 season, and Pro Bowl veteran Quandre Diggs. Seattle was going to go with three safeties as almost a base defense in 2023.
But Adams’ injury and recovery from it were as tricky and prolonged as doctors told him it would be. He didn’t make his season debut until Oct. 2, in the Seahawks’ fourth game of the season at Love’s former Giants. Adams got concussed in the first quarter of that game.
So it was Love starting with Diggs. Rookie Devon Witherspoon emerged as the fifth defensive back at nickel, inside slot cornerback, instead of the three safeties.
But as Adams returned from the knee and concussion issues to play his most snaps in games this season, Love played his fewest.
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 while Adams played 86% at Baltimore.
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.
Meanwhile, Love excelled on special teams. Entering the final regular-season game for Seattle (8-8) Sunday at the Arizona Cardinals (4-12), Love leads the Seahawks with 12 special-teams tackles.
He takes extra pride covering punts and kickoffs.
Julia teases him about that.
“I do take a lot of pride in special-teams numbers. My wife always laughs at me when I say that, after each game,” Love said. “Whatever happens, could get a pick, whatever — ‘Did you see that special teams tackle? Did you see me on punt?’ And she always jokes.
“But that’s kind of who I am as a player I feel like. I’m just somebody who tries to be out there and be productive. I think those guys in the special teams room really are just the grittiest players on the team and just try to get it by any means. And I kind of relate to them.
“I keep track of that stat, for sure. Tackles are a thing. That’s Midwest football for me.”
Only after the Seahawks shut down Adams for the season beginning with that Eagles game last month did Love resume to full-time playing on defense, back with Diggs. Love’s two interceptions of Jalen Hurts in the fourth quarter Dec. 18 sealed Seattle’s upset of Philadelphia that ended a four-game losing streak and revived the team’s season.
Yet fans across the league barely noticed him until that Monday night against the Eagles. Love was not in the top 10 in fan voting for the Pro Bowl. Fan voting makes up one-third of the Pro Bowl voting results.
The other thirds of Pro Bowl voting are player votes and coaches’ votes. Opponents knew from watching game film and playing against the Seahawks how good Love was for Seattle this season.
That’s how it came to be that Love, Witherspoon and captain Bobby Wagner got called into Carroll’s office at team headquarters Wednesday.
“Me and ‘Spoon were in the locker room — our lockers are right next to each other, and somebody grabbed us and rushes us to an office,” Love said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, do I have to sign something?’
“Direct deposits are always acting funny.
“And Pete’s sitting there in his big Godfather chair, and he just said congrats to myself, Spoon and Bobby.”
Love was stunned.
“I mean, shoot, there were some games I barely played this year. The Ravens game, Dallas game, I wasn’t out there that much,” he said. “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.”
Carroll admits Love has been better than the Seahawks expected when they signed him last spring.
We’ll see what that means for Adams next season.
“He’s always doing things right,” Carroll said of Love this week. “He’s making calls. He’s making tackles. He’s just a really good football player.
“I think he’s probably better than we thought, and more complete than we thought.”
Julian Love true to his roots
Love knows coaches and their big, “Godfather” chairs.
He still keeps in touch with his high school coach from Nazareth Academy, Tim Racki.
“Probably every other day,” Love said. “That’s my guy.”
If you can’t tell by know, Love LOVES his Chicagoland roots. And they love him back.
This past summer, Nazareth Academy brought Love back to induct him into its athletics hall of fame and to retire his number 20 jersey. It’s the number he still wears for the Seahawks.
The ceremony brought Love to tears.
Love was in his high school’s theater program, served in its campus ministry, played baseball and also ran for the track team. He led Nazareth to back-to-back Illinois state football titles in his junior and senior seasons, 2014 and ‘15.
Racki, according to a Chicago Catholic article from last July, had a defensive play for the Notre Dame-bound Love the veteran coach called the “Golden Domer.” It “included putting Love in the middle of the defense and letting him do what he wanted.”
“Julian was always mindful to keep himself in the present moment, Racki told Chicago Catholic staff writer Michelle Martin last summer. “He would always keep his head, his heart and his soul where his feet were.”
It’s not often an NFL star, a Pro Bowl player, talks to his high school coach every other day.
It’s not often an NFL star is as grounded in what — and who — made him as Love.
“He was one of the first people who believed in me, in a higher sense — other than, you know, my mom and dad,” Love said of Coach Racki. “He’s helped run my youth camp in the offseason. He’s somebody who also shoots it straight. Some of the hardest critics I have, is, one, my wife — she’s a straight shooter — and him. If something’s out there that looks funky, not giving good effort, not chasing down plays, not running to the ball, he’ll let me know.
“He’s well known in Chicagoland area. He’s coached me, my brother, and helped retire my jersey at my high school. He’s a great figure.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2024 at 11:36 AM.
