Of the many things that went wrong for Shedeur Sanders, the one that was the easiest to feel empathetic about was the Colorado quarterback being prank called to think he was being selected. It was revealed that the prank-caller was Jax Ulbrich, the son of Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich. He reportedly got the number off of his father's iPad to make the tasteless prank call. The NFL has now concluded its investigation, and the Falcons are going to pay for it.
According to NFL insider Tom Pelissero, the Falcons are being fined $250,000 while Jeff Ulbrich is also being fined an additional $100,000 for what the league is calling "the leak of Shedeur Sanders' phone number".
Prank call fallout: The NFL fined the #Falcons $250,000 and DC Jeff Ulbrich $100,000 over the leak of Shedeur Sanders’ phone number.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) April 30, 2025
Ulbrich’s son, Jax, took the number from Ulbrich’s iPad and used it to prank Sanders during the draft. Jax has apologized. pic.twitter.com/xrMd9WwGtJ
As Pelissero mentioned, Jax Ulbrich did apologize in a statement after the draft, so the league's investigation was ultimately more about figuring out how the Ole Miss student was able to obtain the number to execute the prank.
Falcons pay dearly for Shedeur Sanders prank call during the draft
To put into perspective just how much the NFL is fining the Falcons and making them pay for this incident — which, to be abundantly clear, is absolutely the right call — the $350,000 in total would've put them almost inside the Top 10 of the highest fine totals for all of last season. The Dallas Cowboys were 10th on that list last year at $405,947. Atlanta is almost there with this one incident.
Again, though, the league had to come down with a sledgehammer on this. These draft prospects are in arguably one of the most stressful moments of their lives. Not every case is as dramatic as Sanders', but the now-Browns quarterback wasn't the only prospect to get prank called. Tyler Warren, who was eventually selected by the Colts, also received a phony call when the Jets were on the clock. The NFL had to put a stop to this and a fine of this magnitude will certainly help with that.
The Falcons, of course, aren't strangers to receiving discipline from the NFL. Just last offseason, they were fined $250,000 as well, in addition to losing a fifth-round pick in the draft that just concluded, for tampering in free agency with Kirk Cousins. There is also the fake crowd noise incident that previously saw Atlanta see repercussions to the tune of $350,000 and losing a fifth-round pick in that incident as well.
In this case, though, let's hope that the severity of the fines is enough that this is the last we'll see of draft-night pranks. That's not what we need for these young men trying to begin their professional careers in football, and it's certainly not a good look for the Falcons or any team that allows personal information of prospects to be leaked. For once, the NFL got it right with this one.