Seattle Seahawks top five candidates to have surprising seasons

Surprise season No. 4: Seahawks safety Julian Love

Okay, maybe it's a stretch to say that Julian Love will have a surprising season. When Pete and John brought the former Giants safety to Seattle, I wrote that Love - Julian, not Jordan - needs to be spectacular for the Hawks. As I wrote then - go ahead and read it if you missed it the first time; I'll wait. I've got a stir fry going, just about to drop the shrimp. No, really, go ahead, it's good use of time for both of us.

Oh great, you're back. Okay, I know you didn't actually read it, so here's the tl;dr version. The Seahawks signed Love for two years at $12 million total, while Ryan Neal signed with the Shmucks - sorry, the Bucs - for one year at just $1.2 million. They do a lot of the same things, so it seems baffling at first. Neal subbed for the injured Jamal Adams and was great. Love will do the same this year, as long as Adams is out. Hopefully that won't be for too long, but still, here we are with Love instead of the versatile (and cheap) Neal.

I believe it comes down to two issues - consistency and tackling. Love wins both of those contests. There's a reason Carroll and Hurrt didn't turn to Neal immediately when Adams went down. He was pretty bad in 2021. Yes, he looked great in preseason, but he was practically a matador in 2020, missing 13 percent of his tackles. Yes, Neal was much improved last year, but he still missed over eight percent of his tackles.

Love - yes, I'm actually writing about Love now - missed less than four percent of his. And what was one of the Hawks biggest issues in 2022? Yes, a gold star to you, little 12 - tackling! Love is, in fact, a much surer tackler than Adams or Quandre Diggs. The fact he can slide up into the slot and is solid on special teams multiplies his value to the Hawks immensely, especially if Adams comes back and plays close to a full season. I think Julina Love will indeed be spectacular for Seattle.