{"id":739695,"date":"2026-02-09T07:11:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/739695\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T07:11:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:11:21","slug":"ex-giant-julian-love-finally-achieves-his-super-bowl-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/739695\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Giant Julian Love finally achieves his Super Bowl ‘dream’"},"content":{"rendered":"

SANTA CLARA, Calif. \u2014 Julian Love once thought he would never leave the Giants.<\/p>\n

Now, he is a Super Bowl champion. <\/p>\n

The move from east to west did great things for him.<\/p>\n

Love was part of Seattle\u2019s \u201cDark Side\u201d defense that dominated from start to finish Sunday in the Seahawks\u2019 29-13 victory over the Patriots<\/a> in Super Bowl LX.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Seahawks were never in trouble, but their 19-0 lead was trimmed to 19-7 and the Patriots had the ball again early in the fourth quarter, perhaps on the fringes of a comeback. <\/p>\n

They picked up two first downs when Drake Maye looked deep for Kyle Williams. <\/p>\n

Love, right where he needed to be, turned a terrible throw into an easy interception. <\/p>\n

He then raced 35 yards to help set up Jason Myers\u2019 fifth and final field goal to slam the door on the Patriots once and for all.<\/p>\n

\"JulianJulian Love runs with the ball after recording an interception during the Seahawks\u2019 Feb. 8 win. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be kidding if I didn\u2019t dream of that in the backyard when I was 8, 9 years old,\u2019\u2019 Love said. \u201cTo see that ball in the air and it was right to me, all I thought in my mind was \u2018Just catch it.\u2019 \u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Love spent his first four NFL seasons with the Giants, the team that took him in the fourth round in 2019.<\/p>\n

\"SeattleJulian Love (r.) celebrates with Sam Darnold (14) after the Seahawks won the Super Bowl on Feb 8. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

He wanted to stay with the Giants<\/a> but ended up signing with the Seahawks and in his third year with his new team is now a champion.<\/p>\n

It was quite remarkable that the Seahawks had little trouble bludgeoning the Patriots without any real contribution from their top receiver. <\/p>\n

Jaxon Smith-Njigba was targeted 10 times by Sam Darnold and came away with only four receptions for 27 yards. <\/p>\n

His longest catch went for 16 yards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been games where I caught two balls \u2014 I don\u2019t know what I had today \u2014 and we won,\u2019\u2019 Smith-Njigba said.<\/p>\n

This was quite a reversal of fortune for this year\u2019s AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year Smith-Njigba, who finished the regular season with 119 receptions for an NFL-high 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns. <\/p>\n

Two weeks ago, Smith-Njigba wrecked the Rams in the NFC Championship game, hauling in 10 passes for 153 yards and one touchdown. <\/p>\n

Late in the third quarter, Smith-Njigba was forced off the field and into the medical tent<\/a>, as he was checked out for a concussion. <\/p>\n

He was cleared and able to return to the game.<\/p>\n

There has never been a Super Bowl with no penalties in one half of play. <\/p>\n

This one came reasonably close. <\/p>\n

There were no penalties in the first quarter and the first flag of the night was thrown with 3:09 remaining before halftime \u2014 a false start penalty on Patriots RT Morgan Moses.<\/p>\n

The 9-0 halftime lead was a bad sign for the Patriots. <\/p>\n

Teams are now 0-15 in the Super Bowl when held scoreless into halftime. <\/p>\n

The Seahawks points in the first half came on three Jason Myers field goals<\/a>, making this the fifth Super Bowl played without a touchdown scored in a half.<\/p>\n

Darnold is the first starting quarterback to win a Super Bowl for his fifth NFL team. <\/p>\n

Darnold previously played for the Jets, Panthers, 49ers and Vikings.<\/p>\n

Mike Macdonald, 38, becomes the third-youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl \u2014 behind only Sean McVay and Mike Tomlin. <\/p>\n

Macdonald\u2019s 17 wins in one season are the most ever for a head coach under 40 years old. <\/p>\n

He also becomes the first head coach who makes the calls on defense to win a Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

The Seahawks join the Buccaneers (Tom Brady, 2020), Broncos (Peyton Manning, 2015) and Saints (Drew Brees, 2009) as the only teams to win a Super Bowl with a quarterback they did not draft and then acquired in free agency. <\/p>\n

Seahawks general manager John Schneider, who brought in Darnold, is the first GM to ever take a franchise to multiple Super Bowls with different head coaches and entirely different rosters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA CLARA, Calif. \u2014 Julian Love once thought he would never leave the Giants. Now, he is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2067],"tags":[7,519,1329,1917,56,2321,2469,6,261,9,505,41484],"class_list":{"0":"post-739695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-giants","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-julian-love","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-giants","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkgiants","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-seattle-seahawks","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-super-bowl","19":"tag-super-bowl-2026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116039430936485254","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}