Shedeur Sanders wasn’t the only Cleveland Browns draftee to receive a prank phone call during the 2025 NFL Draft.
Mason Graham, the former Michigan football All-American defensive tackle who was taken No. 5 overall by the organization, was also the recipient of prank calls, his father Allen Graham confirmed to the Free Press on April 28.
“Yeah – that happened,” Allen’s text message to the Free Press began. “Someone made a TikTok while crank (sic) calling him & showed his number on the video … his phone was getting called nonstop.”
The fortunate news for Graham, relatively speaking, is he did get the call that actually mattered extremely quickly. Graham, who his former head coach Jim Harbaugh once referred to as “a gift from the football gods” shortly after his arrival at U-M, was selected No. 5 overall by the Cleveland Browns on Day 1.
The former Rose Bowl defensive MVP became the highest drafted Michigan player since the Detroit Lions took Aidan Hutchinson No. 2 overall in the 2022 NFL Draft.
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The same can’t be said for Graham’s new teammate, Sanders. Once seen as a potential first-round pick and potentially even in the top five, Sanders slide down the draft boards became the story of the draft. After falling out of the first round, Sanders then was not selected on Day 2 of the draft, which left him available on the final day when the now-infamous prank-call of Sanders happened.
A video on social media showed a pair of college students making a phone call, one of whom pretended to be New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis. After Sanders answered, the caller told Sanders, “We’re going to take you with our next pick right here” before just a few seconds later saying “But you’re going to have to wait a little longer, man. Sorry about that,” and hanging up.
Sanders, in fact, did have to wait until the fifth round, when the Browns selected him with the No. 144 overall pick.
News has since come out that one of the individuals involved in the prank was Jax Ulbrich, son of Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich. The 21 year old took to social media to make a public apology, saying the following:
“On Friday night I made a tremendous mistake. Sheduer (sic), what I did was completely inexcusable, embarrassing, and shameful,” Ulbrich began. “I’m so sorry I took away from 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.
“Thank you for accepting my call earlier today, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
The Falcons also had to release a statement professing their apologies to Sanders and his family, while promising to review their protocols to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again. While the NFL is not launching a formal investigation, initial reports around the league stated that Jax got into his fathers computer which was left unattended in their home and pulled Sanders’ number from a database that only NFL teams were supposed to have.
“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,” Sanders said Saturday in a phone call with local media. “You’ve seen on Deion Jr.’s YouTube video. My reaction to it, I don’t … it is what it is. I think of course it is childish.
“Of course, I feel like it was a childish act, but everybody does childish things here and there.”
Graham, however, did not receive an apology and has seemingly not figured out who the originator of the call was. Graham’s family did reach out to his new team to inform them of what happened, but sound ready to move on from the entire fiasco.
“Not (sure) how all these guys got their numbers leaked?” Allen Graham said. “We told (the Browns) on the flight over to their facility. Mason said the calls have died down.”
Tony Garcia is the Michigan Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
