There are pranks, and there is cruelty, and in the case of Jax Ulbrich and Shedeur Sanders, let’s be clear: What happened here wasn’t a prank.
Pranks are short-sheeting the bed, or putting a fake spider in someone’s soda, or placing bubble wrap under a rug on April Fools’ Day. What Ulbrich did — embarrassing someone in what should be one of the best moments of his life — is far uglier, and evidence that our culture breeds not just mean girls, but mean boys.
Ulbrich, the 21-year-old son of Atlanta Falcons’ defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, has admitted that he was responsible for a deceptive call made to the former Colorado quarterback during the NFL draft.
The caller, who identified himself as the general manager of the New Orleans Saints, told Sanders that he would be the team’s next pick. Sanders had no reason not to believe the caller, given that the call came in on what was supposed to be a private number. He was streaming the exchange live on Twitch. And yet it was a lie that was all the more cruel given the circumstances of Sanders’ placement in the draft.
It had been widely expected that Sanders, the son of NFL superstar Deion Sanders, would be selected in the first or second round. But like many other players, he endured an agonizing wait. Eventually, he was the 144th player picked in Round 5 by the Cleveland Browns.
Such a wait is difficult for any player under any circumstances — just ask Tom Brady, who was pick No. 199 in the sixth round 25 years ago. But it must have been particularly difficult for Sanders, with so many people paying attention to him and with expectations so high.
It turned out that Ulbrich had taken Sanders’ private number from his father’s open iPad while visiting his parents’ home. According to a statement released by the Falcons, Jax Ulbrich had obtained the number “earlier in the week,” meaning that the call wasn’t an impulsive act, but one he’d had time to think through.
On Sunday, Ulbrich apologized on Instagram, saying that he had spoken with Sanders and hoped the quarterback would forgive him.
Many people on social media, however, were not ready to extend mercy. “Shame on you. Sorry don’t cut it,” said sports analyst and former NFL player Emmanuel Acho in a video posted to X in which he described himself as “livid.”
“Now mind you, there are several prank calls made during draft season, but do you know how cruel, do you know how malicious you have to be to prank call someone who you know the entire freaking world is watching, waiting on their draft?” said Acho, who described the pressure that he himself had felt while waiting to be drafted in the sixth round.
The moment of being chosen in the NFL draft is not only huge for the player, but for their family and friends. It’s like Christmas morning when you’re 4, except with a bunch of incredibly large and muscular young men. Witness the video of Louisiana State University tackle Will Campbell, 6-foot-6 and 324 pounds, who was tearful after his selection by the New England Patriots. “I worked my entire life to be up here,” Campbell said, choking up.
It was that kind of moment that Sanders was waiting for when the fake call came in.
In his mea culpa on Instagram, Ulbrich acknowledged that his behavior was “shameful.” He’s not the only person behaving shamefully these days. Recently, we have seen a Cleveland fan heckling a Red Sox player for mental health struggles and a suicide attempt, and fans blowing whistles to deliberately disrupt an NBA game.
Yes, athletes and coaches behave poorly at times too (including Tom Brady) but their desire to remain employed, and not to pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines, usually helps keep athletes’ bad behavior in check. When ordinary people behave badly, there’s not as much at stake, except for being ejected from a ballpark or arena and, for a while, publicly shamed.
For millennia, the fear of bringing shame upon one’s family was a strong motivation to behave in a dignified manner. But in the matter of Jax Ulbrich, we have a young man who seems to have given no thought as to how his action would affect his parents — not only in any professional repercussions, but also in the embarrassment of having their son behave this way.
At first glance, the Fifth Commandment, “Honor thy mother and thy father,” seems solely about our parents — how we behave toward them, what we do for them. But in fact, living by this precept benefits the child as well as the parents. When we take into account how our behavior, both in small, everyday acts and in the aggregate, will reflect on our family, it’s likely that we will act more honorably.
It’s hard to imagine that Jax Ulbrich would have done what he did if he had, at any point in the days leading up to that call, thought about what it might cost — not only the cost to his reputation, but also the cost to his parents.
To his credit, Sanders took the high road, telling reporters on Saturday, “It is what it is” and adding, “Of course, I feel like it was a childish act, but everybody does childish things here and there.”
Per CNN, Sanders’ new coach, Kevin Stefanski of the Cleveland Browns, spoke more harshly, saying, “People are morons would be my reaction to that.”
Zach Rosenblatt of The Athletic was not as harsh, writing on X, “By all accounts, Jax is a good kid who made a mistake and he’s doing what he can to hold himself accountable for what he did.”
That may well be true, and no one should be defined by the worst thing they ever did. But the “boys will be boys” defense is less convincing after the boy in question turns 21, and other scripture comes to mind: “When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.”
We also could be asking ourselves: When, in American life, did a 21-year-old stop being a man and become a “kid” — whether good or bad?