Arguably, the most anticipated moment of young athletes’ lives is getting drafted to the professional leagues. There are only a handful of people who make it to the draft after playing as a child and at the collegiate level, making it a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Considering how major the event is, the recent incident of people prank-calling players during the NFL draft pretending to be coaches is extremely inappropriate.
The 2025 NFL Draft presented a mix of emotions from players, ranging from tears of gratitude to tears of stress. These feelings arose as players anxiously waited for a call from one of the 32 teams. However, to some athletes’ surprise, when their phones finally rang, they were met with a prank call from random people pretending to be an NFL team wanting to add them to their roster. The most notable prank call scandal involved former University of Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders. Sanders was projected to be a very early draft pick in Round 1, but he ended up falling all the way to Round 6. During the second and third rounds on the second day of the draft, Sanders received a prank call from an anonymous person pretending to be selecting him from the New Orleans Saints.
Videos of the prank caller’s perspective were released all over the internet. Undeniably, numerous people got a laugh out of watching the prank since Sanders’ personality is widely disliked. However, at the end of the day, many could not help but feel bad for him. As more people inspected the video, they realized that one of the boys behind the call was Jax Ulbrich: the son of the Atlanta Falcons’ defensive coordinator and former New York Jets interim head coach, Jeff Ulbrich. Of course, social media erupted, and many people argued over how wrong it is to mess with someone in a moment that means so much to them. As this scandal received mass attention, other similar pranking calling situations were dug up where strangers pretended to be NFL team members. Some notable players who also received prank calls were Abdul Carter, Tyler Warren and Ashton Jeanty. However, they were luckily still selected in Round 1. This stunt has been pulled for years, but people are now starting to realize that it is a serious problem. The Falcons and the Ulbrich family were fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for their actions.
The main issue is that aside from fines, these prank calls have led to no change in the way the NFL runs the draft. I understand that calling the players is traditional and personal, but when pranksters get in the way, it is extremely problematic. Prior to the draft, several players, including Sanders, purchased a phone that only had the 32 teams’ numbers on it, and in return, only those teams would have the number as well. Unsurprisingly, the numbers got out, allowing the prank calls to flood in with no remorse. The NFL needs to come together and find a new network that allows the tradition where players receive a call when they are selected, but prevents faulty calls from getting in the way.
One solution could be that players and teams are mandated to put in the team and player names as contacts so that the player does not mistakenly answer the call when it is from a random number. Other alternative solutions should still be in the works, but keeping the same method for the 2026 NFL Draft is simply not an option.
