Julian Neal’s enthusiasm is audibly contagious as Mike Macdonald gets on the phone. “You there brother? Still alive?” Asks the Super Bowl winning head coach as he laughs at the sound of pure glee emanating from the other end of the line.
It was fate. Julian had not received all 32 hats as he was supposed to, so he sent his aunt to go buy a Seahawks hat. He had a good feeling about it. When he had met up with Leslie Frazier at the combine, the assistant
head Coach informed him that the Seahawks were likely to pick him in the draft. That turned out to be reality. A decision you can tell Mike was extremely excited about, as his smile was beaming as he spoke to Neal.
“Enjoy this moment,” defensive coordinator Adam Durde told the former Arkansas cornerback. Durde will have an athletic and physical corner to use on the Dark Side defense, at 6’2” and 203lbs with a 9.27 Relative Athletic Score. Julian is like a missile tackling running backs and wide receivers to the ground, stopping them in their tracks. A hand in glove fit for this top 5 in the league defense. “I am here with the fam,” Julian told Durde, and you could audibly hear his family cheering for him, getting onto the team he wanted to be a part of.
“I know. Enjoy it, bro,” Durde said in response calmly, with a smile. You can tell he is excited that the young man is living out his dream.
“How are you feeling right now?” asked the Seahawks defensive passing game coordinator, Karl Scott. “I’m feeling good, man! I’m feeling good!” Julian said.
You can hear in the tone of his voice that the new member of the Seahawks was dancing on cloud nine. “We’ve had a lot of conversations about you. Man, I’m happy you’re one of us, man,” Karl informed Julian, grinning from ear to ear. You can tell that the former Razorback was itching to get ready to work and be a Seahawk talking to his position coach.
“Congrats my boy,” said former Seahawks defensive back and now DBs coach Neiko Thorpe. He’ll be able to pass on the knowledge of playing cornerback in the NFL to Julian. He asked how Julian was doing, and after he responded that he was good (for obvious reasons) he asked Thorpe, “How about yourself?” This simple response shows the high character of Julian, and one of the reasons Seattle selected him in the third round. Mike looks for high character players to be a part of the locker room, on top of being high level performers on the field. I believe Thorpe’s response to Julian’s question is how not only the coaching staff feels about selecting Julian, but how the 12’s feel,
“Man. Blessed, man, blessed.”
