After Shedeur Sanders slipped to the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft, the first thing his brother Shilo did was hire an agent.
Shilo admitted their father, Deion Sanders, representing both him and Shedeur, wasn’t “working out too good,” prompting him to sign with veteran agent Drew Rosenhaus. Shilo has since joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent.
As for Shedeur, it’s fair to say that having an actual agent might have prevented some of the chaos surrounding his draft experience. He was the target of a prank call, which only happened because his phone number had been widely distributed among NFL teams. That number ended up in the hands of Jax Ulbrich, the son of Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, who reportedly accessed it through his father’s iPad.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the entire ordeal could have been avoided.
Schefter emphasized that much of the drama stemmed from Shedeur’s lack of proper representation during the draft process.
“I have not heard anybody talk about this, but I got a text on Sunday night that said, ‘The Shedeur prank thing is awful, but shows their naivete by not hiring an agent. The fact that they had the league send his number to the entire football distribution list was such a mistake, one that wouldn’t have happened with an agent, who would’ve handled that communication. I’ve never seen the league share a draft prospect’s number with the entire distribution list. As soon as I saw the email on draft day, I was like, ‘Oh no,’ and the league probably shouldn’t have disseminated it the way that they did, knowing it was ripe for abuse,” Schefter shared on his The Adam Schefter Podcast.
“So, we have a situation here where usually an agent represents a player, and when the league is disseminating numbers, they list an agent as the point of contact, with the agent’s number,” ESPN’s lead NFL insider explained. “In this particular case, the league listed Shedeur Sanders’ name and his number because he was self-represented. That number got out there, it led to the prank call, and here we’re with the league saying it’s going to look into things.”
It did.
The NFL concluded its investigation on Wednesday, fining the Falcons $200,000 and Jeff Ulbrich an additional $100,000.
“Now, the league is smart enough and savvy enough to know that they’re going to take steps to make sure this thing doesn’t repeat itself in the future, because there were any number of prank calls,” Schefter adds. “And I’m sure there were other years where there were prank calls, as well. But this one got so much attention that the league has to take steps moving forward, so that it never happens again.
“But, it’s really interesting to think about it in those terms. When there’s an event, and something happens that is disgraceful, embarrassing, and shameful, like that prank call, it goes beyond just that one person who made that call. And in this particular case, there are a lot of people to blame in this particular situation, including the National Football League.”
This wasn’t just a case of immaturity from a coach’s 21-year-old son but a failure at multiple levels.
The prank call may have made headlines, but it exposed a deeper issue: the risks of navigating the NFL Draft without professional representation. Shedeur’s number never should’ve been circulated the way it was, and the league’s handling of that information was reckless at best.
There’s blame to go around — starting with the Falcons, extending to the league office, and yes, landing squarely on the Sanders camp for thinking it could bypass the standard process. What happened wasn’t just embarrassing, it was preventable.