Leading up to the 2025 NFL Draft, Shedeur Sanders was projected to be a first-round pick, many even projecting him to be a Top 5 selection.
But as Thursday’s first round progressed, Shedeur’s hopes of being a first rounder were dashed thanks to false narratives about him, his attitude and his father. During Friday’s second and third rounds, they were being destroyed again as teams continued to pass on him.
Then Mickey Loomis, the GM for the New Orleans Saints, finally called Shedeur and said they were drafting him.
Only it wasn’t Loomis and the Saints.
It was a prank call.
As the video of the prank went viral, Shedeur went back to waiting. Then on Saturday afternoon, the Cleveland Browns finally selected him with the 144th overall pick in the fifth round.
While most celebrated, the questions about the prank call lingered. How did they get his number? Shedeur made it clear that he gave that number only to teams solely for the Draft.
On Sunday afternoon, the offenders were identified and it was more serious than people thought.
The prankster was Jax Ulbrich, son of Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, and Jax’s friend, and that made it far from a joke.
In a release, the Atlanta Falcons stated Jax “unintentionally came across the draft contact number for Shedeur Sanders off an open iPad while visiting his parent’s home and wrote the number down to later conduct a prank call.”
The team also stated that Jeff Ulbrich didn’t know that his son had taken the number or set up the call until later.
After having me outed as the culprit, Jax issued an apology to Shedeur both on the phone and on IG, saying what he did was “completely inexcusable” and “selfish and childish.”
But it’s more serious than that.
Not only was it disrespectful to Shedeur on the bigger day in his football life, but it also put his father in a horrible situation.
Some are saying it was simply a poor decision by a boy, a tactic used by some when it comes to young white individuals who cause harm to limit the blame and lower the temperature involved, like the “boys being boys” excuse.
It’s the opposite for Black children, who are called “thugs” or characterized as older/adults to increase the scorn placed on them and intensify an already tense situation.
We saw it with children like Trayvon Martin, who was 17, and Tamir Rice, who was 12 when they were murdered. They ceased to be victims and immediately became criminals and deemed to be violent individuals who caused their own deaths.
While Jax didn’t cause violence or inflict physical harm, he is a 21-year-old adult who is old enough to drive, vote, serve in the military, drink and know right from wrong.
That means he’s old enough to know that it was wrong to take the private number and facilitate the prank call, and old enough to understand the harm and embarrassment it could cause to his family, especially to his father.
And while this wasn’t a racist incident, some of the reactions are sprinkled with race-laced verbiage.
Because of Jax, his father has to answer to the Falcons organization as it placed the team in a bad spot. He and his father have to apologize to the Saints and Mickey Loomis for getting them involved. They also had to answer to the Sanders family, who were already dealing with the pain and humiliation of being blackballed by teams before being pranked.
And he and his father might still have to answer to the NFL if they pursue an investigation.
While Jax won’t go to jail, if the Falcons face serious fallout from his antics, his father, who just started with the team this offseason, might be the fall guy if the team needs one to survive this PR nightmare, so this is no ordinary prank call.
His actions added additional humiliation to a young man and his family during a time of frustration and confusion.
Jax’s prank violated the trust his father had in his family keeping private information in their home private. It put his family in a precarious situation and now the Ulbrichs have been thrust into the public spectrum where they are being judged for an incident they didn’t partake in, one which will now become fodder for opposing fans to use against them and the team all season long.
And that’s why this prank call was much more than a simple joke.
