{"id":69161,"date":"2025-05-22T03:06:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T03:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/69161\/"},"modified":"2025-05-22T03:06:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T03:06:11","slug":"jeff-ulbrich-got-great-support-from-falcons-after-sons-prank-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/69161\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Ulbrich got &#8216;great support&#8217; from Falcons after son&#8217;s prank call"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;right:0;bottom:0;width:100%;height:100%;z-index:2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/83773878007-usatsi-25575534.jpg\"\/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/icon-play-alt-white.svg.svg+xml\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/p>\n<p>NFL keeps &#8216;Tush Push&#8217; in play<\/p>\n<p>The NFL won\u2019t ban the &#8216;Tush Push&#8217;, keeping the Eagles\u2019 high-success play in the game\u2014for now.<\/p>\n<p>Jeff Ulbrich found himself in hot water after <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/draft\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">the 2025 NFL Draft<\/a>, when it was revealed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/draft\/2025\/04\/27\/shedeur-sanders-prank-call-apology-falcons-jeff-ulbrich-son\/83315947007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">his son had prank called Shedeur Sanders<\/a> after obtaining the Colorado quarterback&#8217;s phone number from his father&#8217;s open iPad.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, Ulbrich revealed Wednesday he never felt like he was in danger of losing his job as the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/atlanta-falcons\/323\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Atlanta Falcons<\/a>&#8216; defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In all honesty, I never went there, but I felt nothing but support from the organization in every single way \u2013 from the people that worked the line in the cafeteria to (owner) Mr. (Arthur) Blank himself, all of them,&#8221; Ulbrich said Wednesday, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/45257128\/falcons-offered-support-son-prank-call\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">ESPN&#8217;s Marc Raimondi<\/a>. &#8220;I felt great support from him. It was one of the biggest reasons, in all honesty, that I came back here because of the organization and what I think of this building.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ulbrich previously coached with the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/atlanta-falcons\/323\" data-autotag=\"55e278ca-caf0-429b-8b4a-caeb78bff5ff\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Falcons<\/a> from 2015 to 2020. He initially served as the team&#8217;s linebackers coach before receiving a promotion to assistant head coach for the 2020 campaign. Eventually, he served as the team&#8217;s interim defensive coordinator after Raheem Morris was elevated to replace Dan Quinn.<\/p>\n<p>Morris and Ulbrich decided to team up again after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/falcons\/2025\/01\/11\/falcons-fire-jimmy-lake-nfl-news\/77631137007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">the Falcons fired defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake<\/a> following the 2024 season. Ulbrich spent the previous four seasons with the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/new-york-jets\/352\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">New York Jets<\/a>. He spent most of the 2024 campaign serving as the team&#8217;s interim coach, leading the squad to a 3-9 record following the Week 5 dismissal of Robert Saleh.<\/p>\n<p>Ulbrich was excited to return to Atlanta, and was thrilled when the Falcons landed two first-round pass rushers \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/players\/jalon-walker\/1381142\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Jalon Walker<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/players\/james-pearce-jr\/1399912\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">James Pearce Jr.<\/a> \u2013 to supplement their defense.<\/p>\n<p>However, things quickly became complicated after Jax Ulbrich&#8217;s prank call became the center of attention for the elder Ulbrich.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I mean, it was a roller coaster of emotions,&#8221; Jeff Ulbrich said of draft weekend. &#8220;It was great joy and elation, and so rare in the draft that things fall to you in that way. \u2026 And then obviously we had some challenges from a football perspective and from a building perspective and, for me, from a personal perspective and for my family. But it&#8217;s all the things that I&#8217;m convinced that make you stronger. I do. And I live by that and my family lives by that. And because of that, we&#8217;ll be better off because of all this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"related-link\">OPINION: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/columnist\/nate-davis\/2025\/04\/30\/shedeur-sanders-draft-prank-call-falcons-jeff-ulbrich-jax\/83368219007\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jeff Ulbrich was punished for son&#8217;s Shedeur Sanders prank. Now, let&#8217;s root for Falcons DC.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ulbrich is also lighter in the wallet because of the incident. He was fined $100,000 for the prank call incident while the Falcons organization was slapped with a $250,000 penalty. Neither party appealed the fine, nor did Atlanta add any excess punishment for Ulbrich.<\/p>\n<p>Both of the Ulbrichs apologized for the incident, with Jeff giving a statement in a late-April news conference and Jax calling Sanders to apologize before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/draft\/2025\/04\/27\/shedeur-sanders-prank-call-apology-falcons-jeff-ulbrich-son\/83315947007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">posting a written statement to social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The younger Ulbrich may not be out of the woods yet, as his father and family weigh whether to levy additional discipline against the Ole Miss student.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re still working through that, but it was a challenge for our family,&#8221; Ulbrich said. &#8220;But it&#8217;s a challenge that everyone in our family&#8217;s up for. And like I said, it&#8217;s going to make my son better because of it. He will.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NFL keeps &#8216;Tush Push&#8217; in play The NFL won\u2019t ban the &#8216;Tush Push&#8217;, keeping the Eagles\u2019 high-success play&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[247,265,223,254,2554,5570,224,7,248,267,88,6,245,537,530,140,139,17,9,5573,266,5571,776],"class_list":{"0":"post-69161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-atlanta","11":"tag-atlanta-falcons","12":"tag-atlantafalcons","13":"tag-coaching","14":"tag-falcons","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-national","17":"tag-national-sports","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-nfl","20":"tag-overall","21":"tag-overall-positive","22":"tag-positive","23":"tag-sanders","24":"tag-shedeur","25":"tag-shedeur-sanders","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-sports-coaching-u0026-training","28":"tag-sports-news","29":"tag-training","30":"tag-u0026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114549279421353448","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}