Who wants to be Jax Ulbrich right now? It’s tough to fathom that the son of Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich will be having a quiet dinner with the folks any time soon. The NFL has dropped the hammer on the Falcons and their coach for said coach’s son’s idea of a funny prank.
“The NFL has confirmed that the #Falcons have been fined $250,000 and DC Jeff Ulbrich $100,000 for failing to prevent the disclosure of confidential information distributed to the club in advance of the NFL Draft,” NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport tweets.
You may recall that Jax thought it would be truly hilarious to get University of Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders’ cell phone from his father’s iPad (Is Microsoft upset that “iPad” made it into this story? They pay the NFL a lot of money to promote the Surface) and call him during day two of the draft pretending that he was some team and they’d be taking Shedeur with their next pick.
Sure, kids do dumb things when they are young, but at 21 years old? Grow up. Not only was it extremely juvenile, but you’re messing with your father’s employment at this point. If you’re old enough to legally drink alcohol, you should be old enough to know better than to pull a stunt like this. The violin is small for Jax.
Falcons Released a Statement
The Falcons swiftly released a statement following their punishment.
“We appreciate the NFL’s swift and thorough review of last week’s data exposure and the event that transpired due to it,” the Falcons organization said in a statement Wednesday. “We were proactive in addressing the situation internally and cooperated fully with the league throughout the process, and accept the discipline levied to Coach Jeff Ulbrich and the organization. We are confident in our security policies and practices and will continue to emphasize adherence to them with our staff whether on or off premises. Additionally, the Ulbrich family is working with the organization to participate in community service initiatives in relation to last week’s matter.”
One can only imagine what they truly wanted to release to the public. It would probably involve a lot of cursing. Jax made a huge mistake and one that was entirely, easily avoidable.
Shedeur Handled It Well
For all the questions about Shedeur’s maturity and attitude, he handled this situation calmly and in a classy manner.
“It didn’t really have an impact on me,” Sanders said, “because it was just like, I mean, OK, like I don’t feed into negativity or I don’t feed into that stuff. You’ve seen on Deion [Sanders] 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.”
As for Jax, he should be mortified. What was the upside of making that prank call? Bragging to your friends? Because the downside is that you cost your father’s employer a quarter of a million dollars and your father himself $100,000. 15 seconds of thought would have yielded a risk-reward result that would have caused him to put the phone down and just go play video games or something.
Some would argue that Shedeur got pranked a second time when the Cleveland Browns called him in the fifth round.
Atlanta Falcons Punished for Shedeur Sanders Prank Call