It was a long 2025 NFL draft for the son of Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Deion Sanders. Shedeur Sanders was projected to be a first-round pick by multiple experts and mock drafts. So, the quarterback had been waiting for more than a day to find out which team had chose him.
It looked like it was never going to come and then Sanders got a call from a big wig or atleast he thought. However, the real person behind the call was someone named Jax Ulbrich. Who you might ask is Jax? He is the son of Jeff Ulbrich, the defensive coordinator for the Falcons. Jax Ulbrich was pretending to be New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis.
Sanders, 23, got that fake call on Friday, the second day of the NFL draft and by this time Sanders already slid down to pick No. 40, according to Bleacher Report. On the call, which was recorded by both Sanders and Ulbrich, Sanders was told he was their next pick but would have to “wait a little bit longer.”
As the call ends Sanders looks visibly confused and asks his family and friends around him, “What does that mean?”
However, since Jax Ulbrich also recorded and posted the call, it wasn’t hard for the internet to investigate and drag whoever was behind the phone.
“I don’t want to hear any ‘He’s just a kid’ takes with Jax Ulbrich. The fact that the little [poop emoji] used his dad’s job/access to do something so childish is just…,” one upset fan posted on X.
“Jax Ulbrich ain’t nothing but a white privileged, entitled, racist piece of garbage. Wasn’t nothing funny about what he did. Boys like him end up getting the brakes beat off them,” posted another X user.
The flames from fans eventually reached Jax Ulbrich, who posted an apology on his Instagram.
“I’m sorry I took away your moment, it was selfish and childish. I could never imagine getting ready to celebrate one of the greatest moments of your life and I made a terrible mistake and messed with that moment,” the 21-year-old wrote in an Instagram post.
The Atlanta Falcons also followed up with a statement writing, “The Atlanta Falcons do not condone this behavior and send our sincere apologies to Shedeur Sanders and his family… We are thoroughly reviewing all protocols, and updating if necessary, to help prevent an incident like this from happening again.”
But for some fans the statements weren’t enough as they called for more action.
“He [Jeff Ulbrich] should be fired,” one fan responded in the X comments:
However, the young quarterback was unaffected by the call. According to CNN, Sanders said, “It didn’t really have an impact on me because it was just like, I mean, OK, like I don’t feed into negativity or I don’t feed into that stuff… I think, of course, it is childish.”
Sanders was eventually selected by the Cleveland Browns on Saturday as the sixth-pick of the fifth round, and celebrated with his family on a Twitch livestream.
His father, Deion Sanders didn’t say anything about the prank call, only posting “God is Good,” on X to celebrate and Shedeur Sanders also left the drama behind him with a simple “Thank you GOD” post on X.
