This is one of those decisions that you can't evaluate unless you've watched the coach's tape, but the coaches must have determined that Julian Love is better than Ryan Neal. In fact, significantly better, to warrant paying $6 million as opposed to the $2.6 million that Neal would have cost. Let's hope that they did a good job of scouting (and self-scouting) and made the right move here.
This also shows the limitations of PFF's metrics (especially when it applies to safeties because you don't know what the player's assignment was on any given play). If Neal is really an all-pro as PFF says, and one of the highest rated safeties in the league according to their grades (4th with an 82.0 grade), then why has he not received any offers when much lower rated safetles like Taylor Rapp (13th), Juan Thornhill (20th), Jessie Bates (24th), Vonn Bell (35th), Love (44th), and Gardner-Johnson (49th) have all been signed? Maybe now that he's no longer a restricted FA, it will be interesting to see if Neal gets a decent offer from another team.