How Julian Neal chose the Seahawks before they picked him in NFL draft

The proof was in the hat, not the pudding, for Julian Neal. The Arkansas cornerback was clearly meant to end up with the Seahawks.

The new Seahawks cornerback was supposed to get a shipment with 32 NFL hats - one for each team - ahead of the draft. But those hats never arrived, he said in a post on his Instagram.

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"This was literally the only hat I bought," Neal said, pointing to a Navy blue hat in a video posted by the Seahawks. "Some company failed to send me all 32 hats."

The 6-foot-2 cornerback from San Francisco said he wasn't going to go out himself and buy a hat for each team. Instead, he sent his "auntie" out to buy one hat.

"I said ‘Auntie, go get me a Seahawks hat, I promise you,'" Neal said to the camera with a smile. "It's crazy that it happened bro."

In the end, it all worked out. The Seahawks selected Neal, an Arkansas cornerback in the third round, as the 99th overall pick in this year's draft.

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This story was originally published April 27, 2026 at 4:51 PM.